first and consequently contains the first-laid egg, which, according
to rules, should give birth to the first winged insect. How do you
imagine that the larva in that first shell was bidden to waive its
right of primogeniture and only to complete its metamorphosis after
all its juniors? What are the conditions brought into play to produce
a result apparently so contrary to the laws of nature? Humble
yourself in the presence of the reality and confess your ignorance,
rather than attempt to hide your embarrassment under vain
explanations!

'If the first egg laid by the busy mother were destined to be the
first-born of the Odyneri, that one, in order to see the light
immediately after achieving wings, would have had the option either
of breaking through the double walls of his prison or of perforating,
from bottom to top, the seven shells ahead of him, in order to emerge
through the truncate end of the bramble-stem. Now nature, while
refusing any way of escape laterally, was also bound to veto any
direct invasion, the brutal gimlet-work which would inevitably have
sacrificed seven members of one family for the safety of an only son.
Nature is as ingenious in design as she is fertile in resource, and
she must have foreseen and forestalled every difficulty. She decided
that the last-built cradle should yield the first-born child; that
this one should clear the road for his next oldest brother, the
second for the third and so on. And this is the order in which the
birth of our Odyneri of the Brambles actually takes place.'

Yes, my revered master, I will admit without hesitation that the
bramble-dwellers leave their sheath in the converse order to that of
their ages: the youngest first, the oldest last; if not invariably,
at least very often. But does the hatching, by which I mean the