Cocoons, Nests and Eggs 



the Zaithas are very active, darting about with great 

 rapidity ; but an egg-bearer remains quietly clinging to 

 a leaf, with the end of the abdomen just out of the water. 

 If attacked, he meekly received the blows, seemingly 

 preferring death, which in several cases was the result, to 

 the indignity of carrying and caring for the eggs." 



So diverse are the forms of insects, so varied their ways, 

 that it is hardly surprising to learn that their eggs assume 

 all manner of shapes and sizes. They are rarely laid 

 singly ; sometimes groups of two or three are laid by 

 certain insects, for instance, the solitary wasps. Usually 

 the egg-clusters contain about one hundred eggs, and in 

 exceptional cases i.e. the social insects each mother pro- 

 duces hundreds of thousands of eggs. They vary from 

 the large seed-like eggs of the stick insects to the glass- 

 like transparent eggs of certain butterflies. Again, they 

 are arranged in every conceivable way by the female 

 insect ; some are simply allowed to fall anywhere without 

 any provision for their welfare on the part of the mother. 

 This is the case with the stick insects. Their seed-like 

 eggs are simply allowed to fall to the ground, and they 

 do so with such effect in certain districts, where the stick 

 insect is common, that they sound like raindrops falling 

 on the undergrowth. 



At the other extreme is the earwig, an Australian saw- 

 fly and a wood-boring beetle, all of which tend their eggs 

 till they hatch and then mother their young. Midway 

 between the utter disregard for the fate of her progeny 

 displayed by the mother stick insect and the tender care 

 of the earwig, there are cases innumerable where the 

 mother insect makes every provision for her young by 

 seeing to it that her eggs are laid in the most favourable 

 situation for their welfare, and even displaying consider- 

 able ingenuity in preparing suitable situations for these 

 eggs. A case in point is afforded by a little North 

 American stem sawfly, which deposits its eggs in willow 

 twigs, but after the laying of each egg the willow twig in 



