14 INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



consider the rains, snows, and winds, to which they 

 must be exposed for six or nine months, we think 

 the hardest theorist would scarcely maintain that a sin- 

 gle egg could out -weather these vicissitudes, and con- 

 tinue to float in the air. It may not be out of place 

 to remark, that the female aphides, which deposit eggs 

 in autumn, have no wings. 



Again, on the supposition that the eggs are de- 

 posited on plants, trees, or other objects, it is still 

 more unlikely that they could be carried into the air; 

 for, on exclusion, they are, with very few exceptions,* 

 enveloped in an adhesive cement which glues them 

 to the spot on which they are deposited. When 

 eggs are deposited singly, this cement usually enve- 

 lopes each with a thin coating, as in the instance of 

 the admirable butterfly {Vanessa Alalania)\ but 

 when they are placed in a group the cement is some- 

 times spread over the whole, as in the instance of the 

 white satin moth [Leucoma salicis, Stephens). 

 This cement is evidently intended by Nature (who 

 seldom accommodates her plans to our theories) to 

 prevent the eggs from being carried from the place se- 

 lected by the mother insect ibr their deposition. Those 

 eggs, therefore, which are placed on the outside of 

 substances, have this provision for their secure attach- 

 ment to the locality chosen by the instinct of the mother. 

 But, on the contrary, the j)rinciple does not always 

 hold in the case of those deposited in nests and exca- 

 vations, and particularly as to those of ants and ter- 

 mites. The working ants, indeed, carry the eggs from 

 the top to the bottom of their galleries, according as 

 the weather is favourable or unlavourable for hatching. 

 The labourers of the white ants {Termiles), again, at- 

 tend their queen with the utmost care when she is lay- 

 ing; for as she cannot then move about, they are under 

 the necessity of carrying off the eggs, as they are laid, 



* Latreille, Hist. Gener, xiv, p. 342. 



