6 FLASHLIGHTS ON NATURE 



no fresh shoots for food and drink are to be found 

 in the frozen fields or gardens. 



The eggs, so to speak, must be regarded as a 

 kind of deferred brood, to bridge over the chilly 

 time when living aphides cannot obtain a livelihood 

 in the open. In No. 2 we see, above, a rose-twig 

 with its leaf-buds, which are undeveloped leaves, 

 inclosed in warm coverings, and similarly intended 

 to bridge over the winter on behalf of the rose-bush. 

 On this twig, then, we have the winter eggs of the 

 aphis, mere dots represented in their natural size ; 

 they are providently laid on the bud, which in early 

 spring will grow out into a shoot, and thus supply 

 food at once for the young green-flies as they hatch 

 and develop. So beautifully does Nature in her 

 wisdom take care that blight in due season shall 

 never be wanting to our Marshal Niels and our 

 Gloires de Dijon ! 



In the same sketch, too, we have, below, a 

 pathetic illustration, greatly magnified, of the 

 poor old worn-out mother, a martyr to maternity, 

 laying her last egg in the crannies of the bud 

 she has chosen. I say "a martyr to maternity" 

 in solemn earnest. You will observe that she 

 is a shrivelled and haggard specimen of over-bur- 

 dened motherhood. The duties of her station 

 have clearly been too much for her. The reason 

 is that she literally uses herself up in the pro- 

 duction of offspring ; which is not surprising, if 

 you consider the relative size of egg and egg-layer. 

 When this model mother began to lay, I can assure 



