The Life of an Insect

insects, and have seen that the nursing place where the young being is produced, differs wide

th lined with painted hangings, exquisite in make and colour; for some, the little leaf-case, curiously folded together; but for others, none of those works of insect art are provided; they, hid in a rain-proof covering of varnish, lie open to every eye, or scattered here and there on all and every kind of flower and herbage,

observer out of a hundred could in the least imagine what the object at which he was looking really was. Sometimes they are oval and exactly resemble the form of the egg of the bird; but in other instances they are of the most irregular and fantastic appearance. Some look like pill-boxes tied over and down their sides with string; others look like

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ogether, scarcely as thick as a hair, their colour was nearly white, and they were about an inch in length; there were sometimes ten or twelve placed in a bunch; the end of each stalk bore a small head of an egg-like or oblong figure. They appeared to me to be fungi, the little head precisely resembling the appearance of moulds as seen under the microscope; but they were larger in size." They were, in fact, the eggs of the fly in question.

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and when it has got sufficiently firm the wise insect then puts forth the egg, glueing it to the extremity of the stalk; this done, she quits it and begins to form another, repeating the same actions until the proper number is laid. Pois

fying glass we should imagine that they were covered with very fine lace net, others appear as if some clever engraver had been chasing some intricate design upon their surface. The eggs of a species of butterfly are studded ov

ple more delicate than ever Tyrian lady wore as the finest produce of the dyer's art. In the deep crevices of the bark of the elm, and only, therefore, to be found by sharp scrutiny, another moth lays eggs of a lovely pink. Messrs. Kirby and Spence write, "We remember once being much surprised at seeing the water at one end of a canal in our garden as red as blood; upon examining it further we found it discoloured by an infinite number of minute red eggs." Sometimes eggs are spotted, and thus resemble the eggs of many birds; and, strange to say, sometimes they change colour in a very remarkable manner; so that, as far as colour is concerned, an observer could scarcely believe that the

n call them, insignificant creatures of whom we have spoken? Should David say, when he beheld the sun, moon, and stars, as the work of a Divine hand, "Lord, what is man, that thou considerest him, or the son of man, that thou regardest him!" And shall not we, as we contemplate the few particulars here set down of the wonders of insect-life, exclaim, with even greater as

e for months, we may find without difficulty a spider's nest of eggs. A more pleasant place to search for insects' eggs is, perhaps, the garden; and if in the crevices of the bark of the trees, or attached to twigs or branches, none can be found, we can almost certainly promise success if the reader will carefully and patiently search the angles of the garden walls, particularly if he has noticed in the preceding autumn many of the beautiful webs of the garden-spide

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urning out some of the delicate eggs which lie warmly covered up at the bottom. Taking one of them up on the point of

ry weak sulphuric acid and water, which would act on the lime if it were present in their composition, they are not affected by it. Although, therefore some eggs of insects are very hard: so hard indeed as to resist severe pressure with the nail, they do not owe their hardness, as

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e round spot in the middle of the "yolk" or yellow portion; from this the future bird is produced. Although from their extreme minuteness it is difficult to detect anything of this kind in the eggs of insects, some observers state they have seen a similar little spot in them also. Thus, M. Herold says, that in the eggs of the very insect whose nest we have robbed, the garden spider, "this little spot can be seen as a minute white point immediately under the shell, and in the middle of its circumference." This was seen by holding it up to the light, and the spot was more carefully examined by gently pressing the contents of a spider's egg upon a watch-glass. Mr. Rennie says, that "the point where th

like each other in their perfect forms, originated in eggs to either of which the same description of an insect's egg would accurately answer, and leave nothing out? However great our amazement, the fact is unquestionable. The egg of every insect at first consists of an outer covering, a white, a yolk, and the little spot we have alluded to. We might have thought that in creating so many different species of insects, which differ so surprisingly in form as the insect tribes do, the great Creator would have formed their eggs essentially diffe