14 INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



-Consider the rains, snows, and winds, to which they 

 must be exposed for six or nine months, we think 

 the hardiest theorist would scarcely maintain that a 

 single egg could out-weather these vicissitudes, and 

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

 place to remark, that the female aphides, which de- 

 posit 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*, 

 enveloi)ed in an adhesive cement wliich 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 Atalanta) ; but 

 when they are placed in a group the cement is 

 sometimes spread over the whole, as in the instance 

 of the white sain moth (^Leucoma salicis, Ste- 

 phens). 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 selected by the mother insect for their 

 deposition. Those eggs, therefore, which are placed 

 on the outside of substances, have this provision 

 for their secure attachment to the locality chosen by 

 the instinct of the mother. But, on the contrary, 

 the principle does not always hold in the case of those 

 deposited in nests and excavations, and particularly as 

 to those of ants and termites. The working ants, in- ' 

 deed, carry the eggs from the top to the bottom of 

 their galleries, according as the weather is favourable 

 or unfavourable for hatching. The labourers of the 

 white ants (^Tennites) ^ again, attend their queen with 

 the utmost care when she is laying ; for as she can- 

 not then move about, they are under the necessity 

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



