The Processionary: the Eggs 



there anything that has no object? You did 

 not think so; I do not think so either. Every- 

 thing has its reason for existing. Yes, you 

 were well-inspired when you foresaw that the 

 cloud of scales which flew out under the point 

 of your pin must serve to protect the eggs. 



I remove the scaly fleece with my pincers 

 and, as I expected, the eggs appear, looking 

 like little white-enamel beads. Clustering 

 closely together, they make nine longitudinal 

 rows. In one of these rows I count thirty- 

 five eggs. As the nine rows are very nearly 

 alike, the contents of the cylinder amount in 

 all to about three hundred eggs, a respectable 

 family for one mother ! 



The eggs of one row or file alternate 

 exactly with those in the two adjoining files, 

 so as to leave no empty spaces. They sug- 

 gest a piece of bead-work produced with ex- 

 quisite dexterity by patient fingers. It would 

 be more correct still to compare them with 

 a cob of Indian corn, with its neat rows of 

 seeds, but a greatly reduced cob, the tininess 

 of whose dimensions makes its mathematical 

 precision all the more reHiarkable. The 

 grains of the Moth's spike have a slight tend- 

 ency to be hexagonal, because of their mu- 



15 



