VITALITY OF MOTHS* EGGS. 97 



a striking instance of a seeming deficiency of organization 

 being compensated by an instinctive perception. The mother 

 Moth has no wings wherewith to travel far in search of a safe 

 asylum for her eggs, and she would seem, for this reason, 

 guided instinctively to employ her own discarded covering as 

 a bed suited to preserve them. 



Looking however at these germs of life, as they lite here 

 exposed upon the leafless branches, neither bed of cement nor 

 bed of silk would seem to afford a very secure protection 

 against the frosts and winds of winter. Nor would they 

 perhaps, but for the death-defying quality of the vital sparks 

 within these tiny egg-shells, which appear, while thus concen- 

 trated, to possess a stronger power of resisting cold, than when 

 they animate their respective forms after expansion. Insect 

 eggs have been found uninjured after exposure to an artificial 

 temperature of 22 below zero. That of 16 or 17 has 

 sufficed to destroy Insects themselves, and these (of which 

 great numbers pass the winter in the egg) have been noticed 

 as even more abundant than usual, after seasons of extreme 

 severity. An example of this fact is adduced by Eennie as 

 having occurred in the spring of 1830. 



Let us seek now for a specimen of insect life (though still it 

 may be only " Life in death ") advanced one step beyond its 

 threshold, or from egg to Caterpillar. But without a leaf yet 

 opened for its support, where is the Caterpillar to be found ? 

 Perhaps we must go farther than our little garden to discover it, 



