EGGS OF INSECTS. 87 



GROWTH OF INSECTS. 



I HAVE here selected the word " growth" in prefer- 

 ence to development, both because it is shorter, more 

 English-like, and less startling to beginners, and be- 

 cause development has recently become one of the 

 catch words of an absurd theory, and has been twisted 

 from its true meaning, by applying it comparatively 

 to two or more animals, instead of confining it, as it 

 always should be, to an individual. Metamorphosis is 

 still more objectionable, where similarly applied, and 

 I have elsewhere used " Transformations," as some- 

 what less so. 



EGGS OF INSECTS. 



INSECTS' eggs are not all of an oval form like those of 

 birds, but some are like a pear, some like an orange, 

 some like a pyramid, and some like a flask. 



Various shaped eggs of insects magnified. 



The eggs of the gnat, for instance, may be com- 

 pared, in shape, to that of a powder flask, and the 

 mother gnat lays about three hundred at a time. Now 

 each egg, by itself, would sink to the bottom of the 

 water; yet the gnat puts the whole three hundred 

 together in the form of a little boat, and in such a way, 



