CHAPTEK XLI. 

 EGGS AND LABVJE : BREEDING AND REARING. 



THE EGG. The Artliropoda are developed from eggs. The 

 eggs of these animals are often exceedingly curious in form and 

 remarkable in color. The eg-g-s of insects are generally de- 

 posited upon those substances upon which the animal feeds 

 during- its larval or rudimentary stage of existence. They arc 

 most frequently found attached to the leaves and twigs of 

 plants and trees. Some insects are carnivorous as larva?, and 

 deposit their eggs upon dead animal matter, or even, as th" 

 ichneumon-flies and other parasitic forms, upon the tissues of 

 living- animals. Some lay their eggs upon decaying wood, or 

 upon the ordure of animals. Some deposit their eggs in water. 

 The female of some of the myriapoda deposits her eggs in a 

 mass under the bark of decaying trees, and, coiling up about 

 them, apparently guards them with maternal instinct until they 

 are hatched. The spawn of many of the Crustacea is earned 

 about by the female, attached in masses to the lower surface of 

 the body. The eggs of some insects, as the cockroach and the 

 mantis, are deposited in masses concealed within eases, and so 

 united as to appear to form composite or multiple eggs. 

 These are conspicuous objects. A similar arrangement is 

 found in the case of the ova of Hydrophilus and allied aquatic 

 Coleoptera. The eggs of the mosquito are deposited upon the 

 surface of the water in small, boat-shaped masses, composed of 

 from fifty to one hundred ova. The eggs of the Lepidoptera, 

 which are generally deposited upon the leaves and blossoms ,,t' 

 trees and plants, are not difficult to find, and have been more 

 carefully observed and described than those of other orders. 

 By confining impregnated females of many species of butter- 

 flies and moths in nets of gauze drawn over the branches of the 



