The Clythrae: The Egg 



Those of the Four-spotted Clythra are pale 

 'In colour. They are covered with convex 

 scales, overlapping in diagonal rows, ending 

 in a point at the lower extremity, which is 

 free and more or less askew. This collec- 

 tion of scales has rather the appearance of a 

 hop-cone. Surely a very curious egg, ill- 

 adapted to gliding gently through the nar- 

 row passages of the ovaries. I feel sure 

 that it does not bristle in this fashion when it 

 descends the delicate natal sheath; it is near 

 the end of the oviduct that it receives its 

 coat of scales. 



In the case of the three Cryptocephali 

 reared in my cages, the eggs are laid later; 

 their season is the end of June and July. As 

 in the Clythrae, there is the same lack of 

 maternal care, the same hap-hazard drop- 

 ping of the seeds from the centaury-blossoms 

 and the ilex-twigs. The general form of the 

 egg is still that of a truncated ellipsoid. 

 The ornaments vary. In the eggs of the 

 Golden Cryptocephalus and the Ilex Crypto- 

 cephalus they consist of eight flattened, wavy 

 ribs, winding corkscrew-wise ; in those of the 

 Two-spotted Cryptocephalus they take the 

 form of spiral rows of pits. 



What can this envelope be, so remarkable 

 for its elegance, with its spiral mouldings, 

 467 



