Note 11 — Chapter I · THE CETONIÆ

Its growth is rapid. At the beginning of August, four weeks after hatching, the grub has reached half its final size. The idea occurs to me to estimate its consumption of food by means of the stercoral granules which collect in the box from the time of its first mouthful. I find, 11,978 cubic millimetres;11 that is to say, in one month the grub has digested a volume of matter equivalent to several thousand times its own initial bulk.