STATES OF INSECTS. ( gg.) $1 
&c.) adopt a different procedure. As their eggs, which 
are laid in the autumn, are not to be hatched until the 
spring, the female does not, like most other moths, place 
them upon a leaf, with which they might be blown by 
the winter’s storms far from their destined food, but upon 
the twig of some tree, round which she ranges them in 
numerous circles. Ifyou examine your fruit-trees, you 
can scarcely fail to find upon the young twigs collections 
of these eggs, which are disposed with such admirable 
art, that you would take them rather for pearls, set by 
the skilful hand of a jeweller, than for the eggs of an 
insect. Each of these bracelets, as the French gar- 
deners aptly call them, is composed of from 200 to 300 
pyramidal eges with flattened tops?, having their axes 
perpendicular to the circumference of the twig to which 
they are fastened, surrounding it in a series of from 
fifteen to seventeen close spiral circles, and having their 
interstices filled up with a tenacious brown gum, which, 
while it secures them alike from the wintry blast and the 
attack of voracious insects, serves as a foil to the white 
enamel of the eggs that it encompasses. It is not easy 
to conceive how these moths contrive to accomplish so 
accurately with their tail and hind feet an arrangement 
which would require nicety from the hands of an artist ; 
nor could Reaumur, with all his efforts and by any con- 
trivance, satisfy himself upon this head. He bred num- 
bers of the fly from the egg, and supplied the females 
after impregnation with appropriate twigs; but these, as 
though resolved that imprisonment should not force from 
them the secret of their art, laid their eggs at random, 
and made no attempt to place them symmetrically °. 
@ Prate XX, Fic. 14. > Reaum. ii. 95—. #. iv. fi. 1—13. 
VOL, III. G 
