on some Carnivorous Insects. 349 



merely added to them one of her own. It is laid beside 

 the Acraea eggs on a small bit of green Wormskioldia 

 longipedunculata leaf. 



April 30th. — Removed the eggs supplied to the Alesia, 

 since she continued to refuse them, and placed them in a 

 gauze-covered box with a carnivorous cricket {Arytropferis 

 sp.). 



May 1st. — ^No developments in the cockroach and cricket 

 boxes except that the former insects, while still ignoring 

 the eggs, had eaten a portion of a dead companion. 



Later. — The cockroaches and cricket persisted in refusing 

 the eggs, not only when unbroken but when damaged by a 

 pin-point. One actual tasting followed by a rejection 

 took place on the part of one of the cockroaches, and 

 eggs extracted from a hippocoon's body were refused. 

 But both cockroaches and cricket ate other food that I 

 eventually offered them, including eggs extracted from 

 small dull-coloured grasshoppers. 



Concluding Eemarks. — The experiments, were they 

 made on better-chosen enemies, would suggest that openly- 

 laid lepidopterous eggs, generally, are somewhat highly 

 protected by some such quality as nauseousness, though 

 in varying degrees. It was interesting that the egg most 

 frequently taken was a leaf -green one. 



As it is, the experiments are open to criticism. Yet 

 they suggest that experiments on visually-discriminating 

 egg-enemies may be well worth carrying out. So far as 

 the parasitic Hymenoptera are concerned, facts have been 

 recorded showing that some, at any rate, of these do not 

 recognise eggs visually. 



Should further experimentation produce the results 

 that I am inclined to expect, the study of the appearance 

 of insects' eggs is likely to be a very fascinating one. 

 Nor will it be entirely dependent on the obtaining of the 

 food-plant. Thus I have compared the laid eggs of quite 

 a number of different species of butterflies with the most 

 advanced eggs still in the bodies of the gravid parents, and 

 I have found that in each case the eggs about to be laid 

 corresponded well in colour and form with newly-laid eggs. 



Against this we have the fact that newly-laid eggs — and 

 therefore also eggs extracted from the parent's body — do 

 not necessarily give an accurate idea of what will be the 

 coloration of the egg during the greater part of its exist- 

 ence as such; for many eggs (as those of Papilio and 



