STATES OF INSECTS. (ge.) 99 
an hour afterwards a male, and some minutes subse- 
quently to the union, she again deposited eggs, which 
were wholly of a dark brown and convex ?. 
vil. Colour. ‘The colour of the eggs of insects is as va- 
rious as their shape and sculpture. They are very often 
white, those of some spiders like minute pearls’; some 
are yellow, as those of the silk-worm; others orange, 
such are the eggs of the bloody-nosed beetle (Z?marcha 
tenebricosa); others again of a golden hue; sometimes 
they are of a sanguine red. I remember once being 
much surprised at seeing the water at one end of a ca- 
nal in my garden as red as blood: upon examining it 
further I found it discoloured by an infinite number of 
minute red eggs, belonging probably to some dipterous 
insect of the Tipularian tribe. There are also eggs of 
every intermediate shade between red and black; some 
again are blue and others green. They are not always 
of whole colours, for some are speckled like those of 
many birds, of which I can show you specimens, that 
are also shaped like birds’ eggs; these I think were 
laid by a common moth (Odenestzs potatoria); others are 
banded with different colours—thus the blue eggs of the 
lappet-moth (Gastropacha quercifolia) are encircled by 
three brown zones ‘°; others are brown with a white 
zone ‘, 
Many eggs assume a very different colour after being 
laid a few days. In general upon their first exclusion 
they are white. Those of the chameleon-fly (Stratyomis 
Chameleon) which I once found in great numbers, ar- 
* Naturf. xiii. 229, ® N. Dict. d’ Hist. Nat, xvi. 245. 
© Reaum. ii. 286. 4 Prate XX. Fic. 11. Sepp z. iv. f. 2. 
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