LIFE-BOAT OF EGGS. 



egg up to the perfect being. It may be, however, 

 just necessary to premise that in so doing we shall 

 not give anything like the history of an individual 

 insect, such, for example, as a fly or a bee : but 

 shall describe in order some of the most interest- 

 ing phenomena connected with insect-history and 

 transformations generally. Whither, then, must 

 we go to watch the awakening of life in the insect? 

 We might ask the reader's company to 



" where the pool 



Stands mantled o'er with green, invisible 

 Amid the floating verdure, millions stray." 



Here might we point to him that wondrous and 

 exquisite structure, the life-boat of eggs, floating * 

 securely on its silent surface, or anchored, perhaps, 

 to the side of some pond-plant's slimy stem ; and 

 lingering here we might in a few days see the 

 little eggs become burst and give exit to a number 

 of minute creatures of great activity. Some of them 

 would be seen twisting themselves about in a most 

 extraordinary manner, and swimming here and 

 there through the still waters. Or we might take 

 him to the depths of the forest, and now, under the 

 bark of some of the trees, now upon their branches, 



* Tide Frontispiece to this Chapter. 



