CHAPTER XIX 



THE CLYTHR^: THE EGG 



LET us leave the long-armed and short- 

 armed to pursue their amorous contests 

 as they please and come to the egg, the main 

 object of my insect-rearing. The Taxicorn 

 Clythra is the first in the field; I see her at 

 working during the last days of May. A 

 most singular and disconcerting batch of eggs 

 is hers! Is it really a group of eggs? I 

 hesitate until I surprise the mother using her 

 hind-legs to finish extracting the strange germ 

 which issues slowly and perhaps laboriously 

 from her oviduct. 



It is indeed the Taxicorn Clythra's batch. 

 Assembled in bundles of one to three dozen 

 and each fastened by a slender transparent 

 thread slightly longer than itself, the eggs 

 form a sort of inverted umbel, which dangles 

 sometimes from the trelliswork of the cover, 

 sometimes from the leaves of the twigs that 

 provide the grub with food. The bunch of 

 grains quivers at the least breath. 



We know the egg-cluster of the Hemero- 

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