90 STATES OF INSECTS. (Lgg.) 
eggs in a minute, which gives 3,600 in an hour, 86,400 
in a day, 2,419,200 in a lunar month, and the enormous 
number of 211,449,600 in a year: probably she does 
not always continue laying at this rate; but if the sum 
be set as low as possible, it will exceed that produced by 
any other known animal in the creation. 
v. Size. The size of the eggs is in proportion to that of 
the insect producing them, though in some instances 
small ones produce larger eggs than those laid by bigger 
species. Thus the eggs of many Aptera, as those of that 
singular mite Uropoda vegetans, and of the bird-louse 
found in the golden pheasant, are nearly as large, it is 
probable, as the parent insect; while those of the ghost- 
moth (Hepiolus Humuli) and many other Lepidoptera, 
&c. are vastly smaller. This circumstance perhaps de~ 
pends principally on the number they produce: the ma- 
jority of them, however, are small. ‘The largest egg 
known, if it be not rather an ege-case, is that of a spectre 
insect (Phasma dilatatum), figured in the Linnean 'Trans- 
actions*, being five lines in length and three in width, 
which probably approaches near the size of that of some 
humming-birds. The largest egg of any British insect 
I ever saw was that of the common black rove-beetle 
(Goertus olens) sent me by Mr. Sheppard—this is a line 
and half long by a line in width. But we do not often 
meet with insect-eggs exceeding a line in length. A vast 
number are much smaller: those of Ephemere are more 
minute than the smallest grains of sand>, and some almost 
imperceptible, as those of the subcutaneous moths, to the 
naked eye. Commonly the eggs laid by one female are 
* iv. é. xviii. fi 4. 5. > De Geer ui. 638. 
