INTRODUCTORY. 



such a course to his Maker. These reflections 

 have been forced on me by the leaders in our 

 science, or I would not have ventured to 

 express them. Kirby and Spence seem en- 

 tirely to accept Dr. Paley's explanation. 



The substance of the egg-shell is peculiar, 

 but alike in all. It seems to me entirely 

 different from that of a bird, which abounds 

 with calcareous matter, and, in consequence, 

 is very brittle ; whereas the egg-shell of a 

 butterfly is more like thin horn very elastic, 

 very tough, and very pliable bending in any 

 direction as soon as the caterpillar has escaped. 

 It contains no carbonate of lime, and chemists 

 tell us that it is not acted on by diluted sul- 

 phuric acid. Kirby compared the egg-shell 

 of a butterfly to the membrane that lines the 

 egg-shell of a bird; but it appears to me 

 much less pliable and even less flaccid, and 

 much more elastic, than that integument. 

 The interior of the egg consists of a trans- 

 parent colourless fluid, much resembling the 

 white of a bird's egg; but I have never been 

 able to find anything at all analogous to the 

 yolk. 



With the act of egg-laying the care of the 

 mother butterfly ceases altogether. Although 

 we have a great number of pleasing accounts 

 of plant-bugs and earwigs sitting on their 

 eggs, and hatching them by the warmth, or, 

 more properly speaking, by the coldness of 

 their bodies, and afterwards of collecting 

 them under their bodies as a hen does her 

 chickens, and still after that of the little ones 

 following their mother in a family group, just 

 as chickens run after a hen ; still nothing of 

 the kind has ever been noticed in butterflies, 

 and the parent seems invariably to have com- 

 pleted her task when she has placed her yet 

 unconscious progeny in a situation where it 

 will eventually be able to obtain its own live- 

 lihood. Few butterflies long survive the act 

 of oviposition : it seems the end for which 

 they have lived ; and when it is accomplished 

 the termination of their own life is approfch- 

 ing, and the fragile parent resigns its place 

 in the world to its equally fragile descendants. 

 Of the seasons for egg-laying and caterpillar 

 feeding I shall have more to say hereafter. 



It is not a matter that is governed by any law 

 of general application. 



The colour of butterflies' eggs is generally 

 pale green or pale yellow, or, in some in- 

 stances, pure ivory white ; but before the 

 shell is burst, and the caterpillar emerges, a 

 very great change takes place; the colour 

 becomes deeper and darker, and the tints 

 especially the darker ones of the future cater- 

 pillar become visible through the shell, the 

 transparency of which is thus most clearly 

 demonstrated. 



THE CATERPILLAR STATE. 



Dr. Virey, as well as Kirby and Spence, 

 have followed the old authors in stating that 

 the caterpillars of Lepidoptera appear simul- 

 taneously with the leafing of trees, and 

 butterflies with the blooming of flowers : 

 however this may be in those lands where 

 this supposed law was laid down, it is quite 

 certain that the great seasons for caterpillars 

 are the end of May and end of August, the 

 first simultaneous with the blooming of 

 flowers, the last with the fine autumnal tints 

 of the falling leaf ; so that we must not re- 

 gard Virey's theory as perfectly satisfactory : 

 it is truthful and tenable only in part. The 

 eggs of all butterflies do not hatch at the 

 same time ; the caterpillars do no feed at the 

 same time ; they do not turn to chrysalids at 

 the same time. Miss Jermyn, in her " Vade 

 Mecum" a book that I used to study with 

 intense interest follows out the theory by 

 telling us tint "nature keeps her butterflies, 

 moths, and caterpillars locked up during the 

 winter in their egg state ;" evidently intend- 

 ing them to hatch in the spring, feed in 

 summer, and fly in autumn. I believe that 

 Nature obeys her own laws, totally regardless 

 of those we lay down for her guidance. The 

 caterpillar emerges at all seasons ; and as the 

 young lawyer is facetiously said to eat his way 

 to the bar, so does the young caterpillar pre- 

 pare himself for public life, by gnawing away 

 a sufficient portion of the egg-shell in which 

 he had been confined to allow of his escape, 



