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robin are hatched and protected, and the helpless fledglings are fed and cared for until able to cope with their natural enemies. In the next year another brood is carefully reared, and so on for the few years of the robin's life.

Under normal conditions in any given locality the number of individuals of a certain species of animal remains about the same. The fish which produces tens of thousands of eggs and the bird which reproduces half a dozen eggs a year maintain equally well their numbers. In one case a few survive of many born; in the other many (relatively) survive of the few born; in both cases the species is effectively maintained. In general, no agency for the perpetuation of the species is so effective as that of care for the young.

246. Death.-At the end comes death. After the animal has completed its life cycle, after it has done its share toward insuring the perpetuation of its species, it dies. It may meet a violent death, may be killed by accident or by enemies, before the life cycle is completed. And this is the fate of the vast majority of animals which are born or hatched. Or death may come before the time for birth or hatching. Of the millions of eggs laid by a fish, each egg a new fish in simplest stage of development, how many or rather how few come to maturity, how few complete the cycle of life!

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Of death we know the essential meaning. Life ceases and can never be renewed in the body of the dead animal. It is important that we include the words can never be renewed," for to say simply that "life ceases," that is, that the performance of the life processes or functions ceases, is not really death. It is easy to distinguish in most cases between life and death, between a live animal and a dead one, yet there are cases of apparent death or a semblance of death which are very puzzling. The test of life is usually taken to be the performance of life functions, the assimilation of food and excretion of waste, the breathing in of oxy

gen, and breathing out of carbonic-acid gas, movement, feeling, etc. But some animals can actually suspend all of these functions, or at least reduce them to such a minimum that they can not be perceived by the strictest examination, and yet not be dead. That is, they can renew again the performance of the life processes. Bears and some other animals, among them many insects, spend the winter in a state of death-like sleep. Perhaps it is but sleep; and yet hibernating insects can be frozen solid and remain frozen for weeks and months, and still retain the power of actively living again in the following spring. Even more remarkable is the case of certain minute animals called Rotatoria and of others called Tardigrada, or bear-animalcules. These bear-animalcules live in water. If the water dries up, the animalcules dry up too; they shrivel up into formless little masses and become desiccated. They are thus simply dried-up bits of organic matter; they are organic dust. Now, if after a long time-years even-one of these organic dust particles, one of these dried-up bear-animalcules is put into water, a strange thing happens. The body swells and stretches out, the skin becomes smooth instead of all wrinkled and folded, and the legs appear in normal shape. The body is again as it was years before, and after a quarter of an hour to several hours (depending on the length of time the animal has lain dormant and dried) slow movements of the body parts begin, and soon the animalcule crawls about, begins again its life where it had been interrupted. Various other small animals, such as vinegar eels and certain Protozoa, show similar powers. Certainly here is an interesting problem in life and death.

When death comes to one of the animals with which we are familiar, we are accustomed to think of its coming to the whole body at some exact moment of time. As we stand beside a pet which has been fatally injured, we wait until suddenly we say, "It is dead." As a matter of fact, it is difficult to say when death occurs. Long after the

heart ceases to beat, other organs of the body are alivethat is, are able to perform their special functions. The muscles can contract for minutes or hours (for a short time in warm-blooded, for a long time in cold-blooded animals) after the animal ceases to breathe and its heart to beat. Even longer live certain cells of the body, epecially the amoeboid white blood-corpuscles. These cells, very like the Amaba in character, live for days after the animal is, as we say, dead. The cells which line the tracheal tube leading to the lungs bear cilia or fine hairs which they wave back and forth. They continue this movement for days after the heart has ceased beating. Among coldblooded animals, like snakes and turtles, complete cessation of life functions comes very slowly, even after the body has been literally cut to pieces.

Thus it is essential in defining death to speak of a complete and permanent cessation of the performance of the life processes.

CHAPTER XX

THE CROWD OF ANIMALS AND THE STRUGGLE FOR

EXISTENCE

247. The crowd of animals.—All animals feed upon living organisms, or on their dead bodies. Hence each animal throughout its life is busy with the destruction of other organisms, or with their removal after death. If those creatures upon which others feed are to hold their own, there must be enough born or developed to make good the drain upon their numbers. If the plants did not fill up their ranks and make good their losses, the animals that feed on them would perish. If the plant-eating animals were destroyed, the flesh-eating animals would in turn disappear. But, fortunately, there is a vast excess in the process of reproduction. More plants sprout than can find room to grow. More animals are born than can possibly survive. The process of increase among animals is correctly spoken of as multiplication. Each species tends to increase in geometric ratio, but as it multiplies its members it finds the world already crowded with other species doing the same thing. A single pair of any species whatsoever, if not restrained by adverse conditions, would soon increase to such an extent as to fill the whole world with its progeny. An annual plant producing two seeds only would have 1,048,576 descendants at the end of twenty-one years, if each seed sprouted and matured. The ratio of increase is therefore a matter of minor importance. It is the ratio of net increase above loss which determines the fate of a species. Those species increase in numbers whose gain exceeds

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the death rate, and those which "live beyond their means must sooner or later disappear. One of the most abundant of birds is the fulmar petrel, which lays but one egg yearly. It has but few enemies, and this low rate of increase suffices to cover the seas within its range with petrels.

It is difficult to realize the inordinate numbers in which each species would exist were it not for the checks produced by the presence of other animals. Certain Protozoa at their normal rate of increase, if none were devoured or destroyed, might fill the entire ocean in about a week. The congerecl lays, it is said, 15,000,000 eggs. If each egg grew up to maturity and reproduced itself in the same way in less than ten years the sea would be solidly full of congereels. If the eggs of a common house-fly should develop, and each of its progeny should find the food and temperature it needed, with no loss and no destruction, the people of a city in which this might happen could not get away soon enough to escape suffocation from a plague of flies. Whenever any insect is able to develop a large percentage of the eggs laid, it becomes at once a plague. Thus originate plagues of grasshoppers, locusts, and caterpillars. But the crowd of life is such that no great danger exists. The scavenger destroys the decaying flesh where the fly would lay its eggs. Minute creatures, insects, bacteria, Protozoa are parasitic within the larva and kill it. Millions of flies perish for want of food. Millions more are destroyed by insectivorous birds, and millions are slain by parasites. The final result is that from year to year the number of flies does not increase. Linnæus once said that "three flies would devour a dead horse as quickly as a lion." Equally soon would it be devoured by three bacteria, for the decay of the horse is due to the decomposition of its flesh by these microscopic plants which feed upon it. "Even slow-breeding man," says Darwin, "has doubled in twenty-five years. At this rate in less than a thousand years there would literally not be standing room for his progeny. The elephant is reckoned the slow

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