STATES OF INSECTS. (Ligg.) 89 
rounded by a coronet of short bristles, each surmounted 
by a small white ball, so as to wear the appearance of a 
beautiful little Mucor. But hairy eggs are not confined 
to the Hemiptera Order, for, according to Sepp, those 
of the figure-of-eight moth (Epzsema ceruleocephala) are 
of this description *. 
iv. Number. 'The fertility of insects far exceeds that of 
birds, and is surpassed only by that of fishes®. But the 
number of eggs laid by different species, sometimes even 
of the same natural family, is extremely various. Thus 
the pupiparous insects may be regarded as producing 
only a single egg; Mesembrina Meridiana, a common 
fly, lays two°, other flies six or eight; the flea twelve; the 
burying beetle (Necrophorus Vespillo*) thirty ; May-flies 
(Trichoptera) under a hundred; the silk-worm moth 
about 500; the great goat-moth (Cossus ligniperda) 1,000; 
Acarus americanus more than 1,000°; the tiger-moth 
(Euprepia Caja) 1,600; some Cocci 2,000, others 4,000; 
the female wasp at least 30,000‘; the queen bee varies 
considerably in the number of eggs that she produces in 
one season, in some cases it may amount to 40,000 or 
50,000 or more® ; a small hemipterous insect, resembling 
a little moth (Aleyrodes Chelidoniz), 200,000. But all 
these are left far behind by one of the white ants ( Termes 
fatalis)—the female of this insect, as was before observed *, 
extruding from her enormous matrix not less than 60 
2 Sepp. iv. ¢. xiii. fi 2. 3. 
> The sturgeon is said to lay 1,500,000 eggs, and the cod-fish 
9,000,000. 
© Reaum. iy. 392. « See above, Vou. I. p. 352. 
© De Geer vii. 159. f See above, Vot. II. p. 108. 
® Ibid. 159. 166. h Ibid, 36—. 
