ENTOMOLOGY. 73 



amount may be said to be not uncommon. Aleyrodes 

 proletella, a small hemipteron, is the only recorded 

 insect, except the white ant, that makes any approach 

 to the last named number, and even it does not ex- 

 ceed 200,000. An insect resembling an ant, possi- 

 bly a Mutilla, is said to have laid 80,000 in one day. 

 The queen bee may occasionally produce 50,000 eggs 

 in a season, but the ordinary amount does not ex- 

 ceed 5000 or 6000. The female wasp sometimes 

 lays about 30,000, but commonly not more than 2000 

 or 3000 ,* cocci between 2000 and 4000 ; some moths 

 a thousand or upwards ; but in far the greater num- 

 ber of instances, even in regard to the more prolific 

 kinds, the number may be expressed by three 

 figures ; and, in the vast majority of cases, the eggs 

 certainly do not amount to a hundred. Generally 

 speaking, carnivorous species are least prolific, and 

 herbivorous ones most so ; an ordination in harmony 

 with the supply of food, which is limited and pre- 

 carious in the former case, constant and almost in- 

 exhaustible in the latter. 



Our acquaintance with the composition both of the 

 exterior and interior parts of insects' eggs, is far from 

 being complete. The integument generally offers but 

 little resistance, being a mere membrane, not unfre- 

 quently so transparent as to reveal the changes that 

 take place within ; at other times it is hard, dense, and 

 opaque. The former is the case with eggs deposited in 

 the earth, (as takes place in many Coleoptera, Orthop- 

 tera, and Hemiptera,) the moisture and protection of 

 which are probably indispensable for preventing the 



