68 THE LIFE OF AN INSECT. 



warmth, and may even, perhaps, be within a yard 

 or two of one another. What a beautiful and 

 mysterious link is this, between events so dispro- 

 portionately important as the clothing of a great 

 tree with its leafy garments and the coining to life 

 of a little throng of beings, whose dwelling-place 

 is a small twig, and whose world a green leaf! 

 Yet it was not too insignificant a matter for Him to 

 arrange whose dwelling-place is eternity, and who 

 takes up the islands as a very little thing. Does 

 God take thought for these, and will He not 

 much more care for and arrange well every event 

 in the lives of his faithful children ? Surely, yes. 

 Speaking generally, the time taken up in 

 hatching the eggs of insects is very variable. It is 

 a general rule that the eggs which are laid in the 

 autumn must abide the return of spring before 

 they will be hatched. But when eggs are de- 

 posited in the summer, they are often hatched in a 

 very short time. The eggs of the painted-lady 

 butterfly are hatched in about eight days, those of 

 the lady-bird in a little less, from five to six days ; 

 the eggs of another species of butterfly occupy a 

 month, those of spiders three weeks, those of bees 

 only three days, and those of the meat-fly shorter 



