Mr. Vernon L. Kellogg gives the imaginary feelings of a minute scale
that infests oranges during their growth, on finding out that he and
his kind were the common prey of the orange beetle:
He soon learned that of all the orange-dwellers who are born,
only a very, very few escape the beetles and other devouring
beasts who pursue them. And he was highly indignant when one
shrewd orange-dweller told him that it really was a good thing
for the race of orange-dwellers that so many of them were
killed. “For,” the shrewd orange-dweller said, “if all of us who
are born should live and have families, and not die until old
age came on, there would soon be so many of us that we should
eat all the orange-trees in the world, and then we should all
starve to death.” And this is quite true.--“Insect Stories.”
(3133)