EXQUISITELY CARVED AND COLOURED EGGS. 49 



eggs it is difficult to appreciate this beauty in 

 them except when they occur in a mass. The 

 most common tints are white, yellow, and green, 

 but the richer and rarer hues are also to be found 

 among them. Thus, the eggs of a moth are of a 

 beautiful blue colour, banded in the most delicate 

 manner by three zones or rings of brown, the 

 contrast being very pleasing. Another moth, which 

 loves to deposit its eggs in the bark of the willow, 

 produces them tinged with a purple more delicate 

 than ever Tyrian lady wore as the finest produce 

 of the dyer's art. In the deep crevices of the bark of 

 the elm, and only, therefore, to be found by sharp 

 scrutiny, another moth lays eggs of a lovely pink. 

 Messrs. Kirby and Spence write, " We remember 

 once being much surprised at seeing the water at 

 one end of a canal in our garden as red as blood ; 

 upon examining it further we found it discoloured 

 by an infinite number of minute red eggs." Some- 

 times eggs are spotted, and thus resemble the eggs 

 of many birds ; and, strange to say, sometimes 

 they change colour in a very remarkable manner ; 

 so that, as far as colour is concerned, an observer 

 could scarcely believe that the egg was the same 

 he beheld, perhaps, a few days previously. The 



