62 LEPIDOPTEROUS INSECTS. 



sometimes their colors have lost something of their vivacity by their 

 hybernation. 



Most Lepidopters take their food by pumping up, with their spiri- 

 trompe (or proboscis), the choicest juice of flowers, either during the 

 day or after the setting of the sun. Those in which that organ exists 

 only in a rudimentary state, as most of the Heterocerata, die without 

 taking any nourishment. There are some species, such as the Vanessas 

 and the Jlpaturas that prefer to the nectar of flowers the liquids secreted 

 by the wounds of trees. Others feed upon the excrements of animals 

 and even upon carrion. Sometimes during the heat of Summer we 

 see certain species assembling in groups, more or less numerous, around 

 the brinks of streams, or at pools in muddy roads, sucking the moist 

 earth as if for the purpose of quenching their thirst; and finally, a great 

 variety of the Nocturnals seek out the honey which, at certain seasons 

 of the year, covers the leaves of many trees. 



The female lays her eggs upon the plant by which her family is to 

 be nourished. They ordinarily have a spheroidal or oblong form, and 

 the shell is generally more or less fluted. When they are first laid they 

 are covered with a gluey matter, insoluble in water, which serves to fix 

 them upon the stalks or upon the leaves of plants. In the species which 

 live together the female deposits all her eggs, or at least a large part 

 of them, in the same place. Sometimes she covers them with hair from 

 her abdomen in order to preserve them from cold and moisture, or she 

 entirely conceals them under a white foamy substance. When the ca- 

 terpillars are to live upon trees which lose their leaves in Autumn and 

 the eggs must remain during the winter, the female, with wonderful pro- 

 vidence, deposits them upon the trunk or upon the branches, which is 

 sometimes done with remarkable symmetry ; the Bomhyx ncustria, for 

 instance, arranges hers witii great skill along the branches in the form 

 of rings or of spirals. In the species which deposit their eggs singly or 

 in little groups of two or three, the female sometimes covers them up 

 in a little bed of hair taken from her own body. Most of the Rhopa- 

 locerata, the Noctuelidae, the Sphingidae, the Geometrae, etc., deposit 

 only one egg at a time, upon leaves or upon stalks. 



The size of the egg, compared with that of the perfect insect, varies 

 greatly according to the race to which it belongs. Those of the Sulur- 

 ?«a, the SjjJi'mx, the Bomhyx, etc., are generally pretty large, whilst 

 those of the Zenzera aesculi, and of the Cossus lignij)erda, are very 

 small. Tlieir color is as various as that of birds' eggs ; we see them of 

 all shades, from a bright white to a deep black, and some are spotted 

 with diiferent colors. 



