46 THE MICKOSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS. 



These eggs once enclosed the caterpillar of a stint-bodied 

 moth, which is said to assume the colour of the lichens 

 on which it feeds, being grey when it feeds on a grey 

 one, and yellow when it feeds upon a yellow one; the 

 change of colour being intended by Providence, it is 

 supposed, to conceal it from its enemies, as it is very 

 difficult to distinguish it from the lichen upon which it 

 is feeding. 



Have you ever thought what wonderful things eggs 

 are ? of the variety of colour, as in those of birds ; their 

 beauty of design, as of insects; and their remarkable 

 resemblance to seeds? 



" It was a notion of [Erasmus] Darwin's," says Kennie, 

 "(much more plausible and ingenious than his meta- 

 morphosis of shell-fish into birds), that the colours of 

 many animals are adapted to concealment from their 

 natural enemies." 



May we not see in this one of the many parables of 

 nature ? Is it not a riddle which any devout student will 

 easily discover ? 



The suggestive remarks of many celebrated entomo- 

 logists respecting the change of colour in the caterpillar 

 as it varies its food, applies to several species in the 

 variety of colour in its egg ; in several cases it is 

 precisely similar to the part of plant upon which the 

 egg is laid. And then, too, how regularly and orderly 

 they are laid ! not deposited anyhow, one upon another, 

 but neatly and beautifully packed side by side, as with 

 rule and compass. 



The eggs of insects have a thin transparent shell 

 enclosing the germ of the caterpillar, exactly as the seed 

 encloses the embryo of the plant ; and a comparison of 

 one with the other will give us much matter for reflection 

 on the beginning of life in animals and plants. Both 



