STATES OF INSECTS. (Lgg-) 79 
which it forms an arched covering, effectually protecting 
them, until they are hatched, from every external injury. 
Some species lay so many eggs, that the abdomen is not 
sufficiently large to cover the whole mass, but merely 
one side of it, the remainder being enveloped in cottony 
web 3. 
I am next to consider the situation of those eggs that 
are excluded by the mother in groups without any other 
covering than the varnish with which they are usually 
besmeared in their passage from the oviduct. ‘The fe- 
males only place them upon or near the food appropri- 
ated to the young larvee, to which they adhere by means 
of the varnish just mentioned. These groups consist of 
a greater or less number; and when the eggs are hatched 
by the heat of the sun, the larvee begin to disperse and 
attack with voracity the food that surrounds them. It 
is thus that most butterflies and moths attach their eggs 
to the stems, twigs, and leaves of plants; that the lady 
birds (Coccinelle), the aphidivorous flies (Syrphi, &c.), 
and the lace-winged flies (Hemerobii), deposit them in 
the midst of plant-lice (Aphides); that the eggs of some 
flesh-flies are gummed upon flesh; those of crickets and 
grasshoppers buried in the earth; those of gnats and 
other Tipularians set afloat upon, or submerged in, the 
water. 
Frequently the whole number of eggs laid by one 
female is placed in one large group, more commonly, 
however, in several smaller ones, either at a distance 
from each other on the same plant, or on distinct plants. 
The object in the latter case seems to be, in some in- 
stances, to avoid crowding too many guests at one table, 
* Reaum. iv. Mem. i. 
