EGGS OF INSECTS 123 



It needs but a moment's consideration to see that 

 Nature yields a boundless variety of combinations 

 and devices, useful in thousands of ways, and that, as 

 a rule, her beauties are only hidden from those who 

 will not make the effort to see them. But when we 

 turn to the/nicroscopic forms of life, we are astonished 

 that so much beauty should be accorded to objects so 

 small, and so apparently unimportant, and we marvel 

 at the loveliness hidden in a mere speck and only 

 made visible by a powerful magnifier. 



It may be that these wonders of Nature are intended 

 for our study, to teach us the importance of being 

 accurate, and that in them we may have before us at 

 all times the handiwork of God and evidences of His 

 wisdom. 



Leuwenhoek (1632 1/23) states that in three 

 months a single house-fly can produce 746,496 eggs ; 

 and Linnaeus, calculating on the voracity of the hungry 

 offspring of a fly, states that, in warm climates, three 

 flies destroy the dead body of a horse as quickly as a 

 lion. According to Sir Richard Owen it requires 

 nineteen figures to express the numerical offspring of 

 a single aphis in the tenth generation. Notwith- 

 standing the extraordinary fecundity of insects their 

 eggs are marvels of beauty. But to our limited 

 vision the human eye only sees the general shape and 

 colour of these tiny objects. Let them be viewed 

 with the aid of the microscope, and at once their 

 delicate chisellings and mechanism appear. 



Some insects lay oval eggs, others cylindrical, 



