314 OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS. 



soon as the eggs were hatched, the carcass would afford ready 

 food for the maggots. * 



' f The eggs of iusects are liable to great variety of forms, and 

 external markings : they are seldom oval, like those of birds. Some are 

 figured on one side, and plain on the other. The following are examples 

 of a few of these forms : 



No. 1. is an egg of the speckled wood butterfly, (hipparchia cegena. ) 

 2. the small tortoise-shell butterfly 3. the large tortoise-shell butterfly. 



4. Angle shades moth 5. Lackey moth 6. Cabbage butterfly. 



Nature is no less fanciful in the strange freaks which she exhibits, in 

 many of the caterpillars of insects ; among these may bn noticed the 

 following figure, the lobster caterpillar, (stauropusfagi, of Germar.} 



