CARE AND FECUNDITY. 187 



where their spawn is hatched long before that be in an 

 animated state, as well as the insects which deposit 

 their eggs and perish, and which in some cases, as in 

 that of the ephemera, appear to take the winged or 

 perfect state for no other purpose, that we can discover, 

 than that they may deposit their eggs, are instances 

 of the latter. The niduses which they select have no- 

 thing to do with their own modes of life, and when 

 these are chosen, the young is not an animal, but a 

 substance that may remain unchanged for months or 

 even for years, unless it shall be exposed to these ex- 

 ternal agents, and in those external circumstances, that 

 are calculated for awaking its vitality. There is, there- 

 fore, nothing at all in accordance with what we call 

 knowledge, in the matter. The being that deposits can- 

 not by possibility do so from experience, for experi- 

 ence it has none ; and the thing which is deposited is 

 insensible, and though it were not, cannot know what 

 are to be its future changes. The fly that, in the autumn, 

 glues her egg to the place from which a bud is to pro- 

 ceed, ere yet the bud be visible to the naked eye, 

 cannot have knowledge that a bud is to be there ; and 

 yet she places it in that very situation in which, when 

 the spring has called the being, whatever it may be, 

 out of the egg, it can best gnaw the blossom, mine 

 the leaf, roll it into a sheath, or weave two or more 

 together into a tent. We work with difficulty and 

 uncertainty, even when we have had experience when 

 we know our materials and have laid a plan of what 

 we are to do ; but in this case, where there is no know- 

 ledge, there is never the least difficulty or uncertainty. 

 One curious matter we have often observed : if a cater- 



