Ill 



HOW AN INSECT GROWS UP 



All insects come from eggs. The ancient notions that they 

 may generate spontaneously — midges from mud, blowflies 

 from carcasses, moths from dust, etc. — have all proved 

 erroneous. 



The eggs are laid by 

 the mother with 

 wonderful instinct and 

 precision in the places 

 where the young on 

 hatching will find food. 

 It may be in earth or in 

 water or on some par- 

 ticular kind of plant or 

 of animal; and often it 

 is in a place where the 

 mother herself could not 

 live. The eggs are laid 

 by different insects in a 

 great many ways — 

 singly or in clusters; 

 naked or under a cover- 

 ing; on the surface on 

 stalks or in deep holes drilled to receive them. 



On hatching, the young insect, released from the cramped 



Fig. 10. — Eggs and young of 

 the tent caterpillar. A , egg masses 

 on choke cherry twigs (half natural 

 size): B, eggs exposed, the cover- 

 ing cut away; C, six eggs, three of 

 which have hatched and are 

 empty; D, two newly hatched 

 caterpillars (from Snodgrass). 



