Mealworm

“ This is moistened with water or mixed with mashed boiled potato, and forms a diet upon which most of the insectivorous birds thrive. The various ingredients, or the food ready made, can be obtained at almost any bird-fancier's shop. Although it is a good staple diet for these birds, the addition of mealworms, caterpillars, grubs, spiders and so forth is often a necessity, especially for purely insectivorous species. ”

“ If that tube didn't swell out into a stomach at one end, and if it wasn't inside of such a queer, armored man-of-war, wouldn't you say he was simply an earthworm? The earthworm lives on very simple breakfast food, the earth he burrows in, and he doesn't need a big stomach to keep it in until it is digested, as the crawfish does; so he doesn't have such a stomach. The earthworm's food passes right through him and digests all the way down—tastes good all the way down, too, very likely, for he doesn't have any special tongue to taste with, either. ”

“ Unlike other creatures who allow themselves a certain period between their meals, the larva sets to its feast and does not leave the table until it has devoured all its contents,—upon which it immediately begins again elsewhere. No gourmand in the world, whether among human beings or brutes, can compare with the insect in this form for the amount of food consumed. Morning, noon, and night, is to it only a continued round of feasting; and, as may well be imagined, the larva grows very rapidly accordingly. Some larvæ consume animal, others vegetable food ”

“ In the course of an hour or two, or even much less in some instances, the larva revives, takes heart, and begins by eating whatever food may happen to lie in its way; and now the larva becomes a terror to the world of insects, or even, indirectly, to man and to nations. Instead of simply eating, in order to live, like most other beings, it only lives [94] to eat; it has no other duty to perform at present but to eat as fast and as much as it possibly can in a certain time; and it must be confessed, the larva, generally speaking, leaves little to be desired on the score of a sharp appetite. ”

“ But as they often drag particles of soft stone, such as of chalk, into their burrows, I feel some doubt whether the starch was used as food. Pieces of raw and roasted meat were fixed several times by long pins to the surface of the soil in my pots, and night after night the worms could be seen tugging at them, with the edges of the pieces engulfed in their mouths, so that much was consumed. Raw fat seems to be preferred even to raw meat or to any other substance which was given them, and much was consumed. ”

“ The food, more or less divided by the jaws, accumulates in the crop, which is very distensible; and, when the food is penetrated by the neutral or alkaline liquid, there undergoes an evident digestive action resulting, in carnivorous insects, in the transformation of albuminoid substances into soluble and assimilable matter analogous to peptones, and, in herbivorous insects, an abundant production of sugar from starch. This digestion in the crop, a food-reservoir, is very slow, and, until it is ended, the rest of the digestive canal remains empty. ”

“ The proglottides containing the eggs pass out of the final host along with the faeces and enter the intermediate host with the food. The larvae hatch, and boring their way into the blood-vessels, are carried by the circulation to various internal organs. Here they usually become "bladder-worms," and develop the "head" of the future sexual form. Then, if, as is usually the case, the intermediate host is preyed upon by the final host, the larval Cestodes enter the alimentary canal of the latter. The head of the larva alone survives digestion, and from it the mature worm is formed. ”

“ Léon Fredericq states [34] that the digestive fluid of worms is of the same nature as the pancreatic secretion of the higher animals; and this conclusion agrees perfectly with the kinds of food which worms consume. Pancreatic juice emulsifies fat, and we have just seen how greedily worms devour fat; it dissolves fibrin, and worms eat raw meat; it converts starch into grape-sugar with wonderful rapidity, and we shall presently show that the digestive fluid of worms acts on starch. [35a] But they live chiefly on half-decayed leaves ”

“ The causes of worms are—weak bowels; bad and improper food, such as unripe, unsound, or uncooked fruit, and much green vegetables; pork, especially underdone pork; an abundance of sweets; the neglecting of giving salt in the food. One frequent, if not the most frequent, cause of tape-worm is the eating of pork, more especially if it be underdone. Underdone pork is the most unwholesome food that can be eaten, and is the most frequent cause of tape-worm known. Underdone beef also gives tape-worm; let the meat, therefore, be well and properly cooked. ”

“ They will eat scraps of meat by sucking the juices, and scrape off the pulp of leaves and root vegetables in much the same way. Much of their subsistence is upon organic matter that can be extracted from the soil. Quantities of earth are swallowed. It is rare that an earthworm is dug up that does not show earth [Pg 65] pellets somewhere on their way through the long digestive canal. The rich juices of plant substance are absorbed from these pellets as they pass through the body.
Earthworms explore the surface of the soil by night, and pick up what they can find of fresh food. ”

“ The colour is saturated green, the eyes are transformed into round, projecting shiny black beads, and the head is erect. The ludicrously dreamy, complacent look has given way to wide-awake alertness. They take all kinds of living food. When they find an earthworm, they first look at it, bending the head sharply down, lift themselves upon the fore-limbs and then pounce upon it, nipping the prey with the jaws, and then poking it down deliberately with the hands. ”

“ These worms are extremely tenacious of life. Even without food they may live as long as a year in the proper environment. Ordinarily they are quite voracious animals. They eat earthworms, other sea worms, small mollusks—almost anything soft-bodied which the eternally active proboscis can bring to the mouth. There it is sucked into the digestive tract. The digestive process is very rapid. Some species have distensible mouths. Like snakes, they can devour animals bigger than themselves. Some are cannibals. When times are hard they can, like planarians, absorb themselves. ”

“ These they obtain either by turning over lumps of decaying vegetable matter and picking up the scattered worms, or by thrusting their bills into the soft earth, where (guided by scent it is supposed) they speedily find any worm lying hid, and having drawn it out, swallow it whole, with much dexterity. When the earth is frozen hard, they shift their ground, repairing to the neighbourhood of the sea, or of springs; and now, probably, they are less select in their diet, feeding on any living animal matter that may fall in their way. ”

“ The hard substances commonly called captain's biscuits are the objects of attack, together with flour, peas, and similar articles of food, and the attacking insect is the larva of the meal-worm, the entomological title of which is Tenebrio molitor. In vain does the ship's cook, with all his art, prepare a soup composed of the richest ingredients, and calculated, as one would think, to gratify the taste of the greatest epicure. The larvæ have been beforehand with him; they have attacked and become mixed with the flour or the peas ”

“ I have kept half-a-dozen specimens in a green-house for several years, and have come to the conclusion that they are dull, not companionable creatures, in spite of their imposing, rather noble appearance when, with their heads erect, they calmly look about with their large, quiet eyes. Each dug its own hole in the hard ground underneath and between large stones. At dusk they sat in front of the holes or walked leisurely to the pan with the earthworms which formed their principal food. Meat they did not touch, but they killed and chewed up lizards and blind-worms. ”

“ All the grasshoppers, caterpillars, and bugs, with a large portion of the beetles, are injurious, and it is safe to say that noxious insects comprise more than one-third of the robin’s food.
Vegetable food forms 58 per cent of the stomach contents, over 42 per cent being wild fruits and only a little more than 8 per cent being possibly cultivated varieties. Cultivated fruit amounting to about 25 per cent was found in « 4 » the stomachs in June and July, but only a trifle in August. Wild fruit, on the contrary, is eaten every month and constitutes a staple food during half the year. ”

“ And inside as well as outside man is a harvest-field for the midges. Worms of unpleasing variety infest him in every organ, troubling not alone the digestive region, but lying. hid in the firm flesh, the brain, even the eye. And that minute but multitudinous creature with which a pork diet furnishes him—the trichina—makes the whole body its home, and literally eats him up alive.
Nor has our economical mother Nature more mercy on her other gigantic creatures than upon man. They are all the prey of some special insects or other parasites. ”

“ Lewis, though feeding largely on seeds, and in cities upon almost every article of human food, the sparrows feed their young chiefly with worms, larvæ, the soft portions of coleoptera, moths, and other tender animal food. "By this means the number of devouring worms has been greatly diminished. The leaf-rolling caterpillar of the sycamore and the currant-bush are known to be taken and devoured by sparrows.
The inch-worm, too, is taken when young, as is the Japanese silk-worm, which feeds upon the ailantus-leaf. ”

“ The food of moles chiefly consists of worms, and the larvæ, or grubs of insects, of which they eat enormous quantities. They are extremely voracious, and the slightest privation of food drives them to frenzy, or kills them. They will all eat flesh, and when shut up in a cage without nourishment, have been known to devour each other. There is a remarkable instance of a mole, when in confinement, having a viper and a toad given to it, both of which it killed and devoured. All squeeze out the earthy matter which is inside worms, before eating them, which they do with the most eager rapidity. ”

“ The more terrestrial forms walk and run excellently, often stopping suddenly to probe the soil for worms or larvae, which, with insects generally, and molluscs, provide the chief sustenance. A large amount of fruit is also consumed, including berries and seeds; frogs and, as some say, callow nestlings are also devoured; Pastor, Dilophus, and Acridotheres destroy locusts; Eulabes and its allies prefer vegetable food; Buphaga is termed Ox-pecker or Rhinoceros-bird, from clearing ticks off those animals. Certain species disgorge nutriment for their young. ”

“ There are climbing, swiftly running, and even flying forms, while others lead a subterranean life like earthworms. Most of them live on animal food, varying from tiny insects and worms to Birds and Mammals, while others live upon vegetable diet. According to this diet, the teeth and the whole digestive tract are modified. The intestine is relatively short in the carnivorous, long in the herbivorous species. ”

“ Worms generally infest weak bowels; hence, the moment a child becomes strong worms cease to exist. The reason why a child is so subject to them is owing to the improper food which is usually given to him. When he be stuffed with unsound and with unripe fruits, with much sweets, with rich puddings, and with pastry, and when he is oftentimes allowed to eat his meat without salt, and to bolt his food without chewing it, is there any wonder that he should suffer from worms? ”

“ Some doubts have occurred as to the food of the glow-worm. From actual observation, it has been ascertained that its larvæ feed on snails, decayed worms, &c., and are decidedly carnivorous. Neither old nor young touch plants as food. The larvæ are very voracious in their habits; but it is supposed that the perfect insect eats but little. If it does eat, it probably feeds on animal substance.
The female is without wings, and is far more luminous than the male. ”

“ When we examine the stomach and observe the food in its different degrees of digestion, we see distinctly the worms coming out of their holes, wallowing in that which physiologists call chyle, and choosing afterwards at their convenience the place where they may completely develop themselves. At the end of a few days, the fish may have swallowed an innumerable quantity of small animals, and if each of them introduces some worms, we can easily understand in how short a time the intestine becomes literally filled. ”

“ The natural and ordinary habitation of the round-worm is the small intestine, especially the jejunum, and it commonly only occurs in the large intestine, mostly dead, on the way to be discharged with the evacuations. Under disturbing circumstances, as the character of certain irritating food, the parasite is disposed to become restless and wander from its usual position. Not unfrequently it enters the stomach, and thence may ascend to the mouth or nose, and perhaps the first intimation of the presence of such an unwelcome guest is in its expulsion from the mouth. ”

“ Meal worms, the stand-by food of bird fanciers who keep soft-bills as pets, are a real delicacy and are very beneficial for canaries, especially during the breeding and moulting seasons, or when a bird is run-down as a result of soft moult. Meal worms are the larvae of the small grain moths such as are prevalent in any cereal product, and which you sometimes find in bird seed. Meal worms can often be raised as a profitable side line and sold to pet shops. ”