OF INSECTS. 187 



the antennae, the limbs and wings of the fly, have been 

 observed to be folded up within the body of the caterpillar ; 

 and with such nicety, as to occupy a small space only under 

 the two first wings. This being so, the outermost animal^ 

 which, beside its own proper character, serves as an integu- 

 ment to the other two, being the furthest advanced, dies, 

 as we suppose, and drops off first. The second, the pupa 

 or chrysalis, then offers itself to observation. This also, 

 in its turn, dies ; its dead and brittle husk falls to pieces, 

 and makes way for the appearance of the fly or moth. 

 Now, if this be the case, or indeed whatever explication 

 be adopted, we have a prospective contrivance of the most 

 curious kind ; we have organizations three deep^ yet a vas- 

 cular system, which supplies nutrition, growth, and life, to 

 all of them together. 



VI. Almost all insects are oviparous. Nature keeps 

 her butterflies, moths and caterpillars, locked up during 

 the winter in their egg state ; and we have to admire the 

 various devices, to which, if we may so speak, the same 

 nature hath resorted, for the security of the egg. Many 

 insects enclose their eggs in a silken web ; others cover 

 them with a coat of hair, torn from their own bodies ; 

 some glue them together ; and others, like the moth of the 

 silk-worm, glue them to the leaves upon which they are 

 deposited, that they may not be shaken off by the wind, 

 or washed away by rain ; some again make incisions into 

 leaves, and hide an egg in each incision ; whilst some en- 

 velope their eggs with a soft substance, which forms the 

 first aliment of the young animal : and some again make 

 a hole in the earth, and, having stored it with a quantity 

 of proper food, depasite their eggs in it. In all which we 

 are to observe, that the expedient depends, not so much 

 upon the address of the animal, as upon the physical re- 

 sources of his constitution. 



The art also with which the young insect is coiled up 

 in the egg, presents, where it can be examined, a subject of 

 great curiosity. The insect, furnished with all the members 

 which it ought to have, is rolled up into a form which seems 

 to contract it into the least possible space ; by vv^hich con- 

 traction, notwithstanding the smallness of the egg, it has 

 room enough in its apartment, and to spare. This folding 

 of the limbs appears to me to indicate a special direction ; 

 for, if it were merely the effect of compression, the col- 

 location of the parts would be more various than it is. Xu 

 the same species^ I believe^ it is always the same. 



