139 BIOGRAPHY OF HEMILEUCA MAIA. 7 



Experiments instituted upon the solubility of tins cement, show it 

 to be unaffected by immersion for twenty-four hours in cold water, 

 alcohol, ether or chloroform. Subjected to boiling water in a state 

 of rapid ebullition for the space of one hour, it became softened suf 

 ficiently to allow the eggs which were still cohering to be separated by 

 the point of a knife. Upon the subsequent drying of the belt, it was 

 found to be as firmly bound together as at first. 



Oviposition. The eggs are deposited in the fall, probably in the 

 month of October, soon after the emergence from the pupa, as in the 

 neighboring sub-family of Attacinae, in which the female comes from the 

 cocoon with her abdomen distended with fully matured eggs, finds her 

 mate the same evening if there be one in the vicinity, and deposits 

 her eggs very soon thereafter,* or in some instances a portion even 

 before mating.f While engaged in ovipositing, the head of the moth 

 is directed toward the tip of the twig, and she probably performs 

 successive circuits about the stem, corresponding in number to that 

 of the egg-rings. 



Ilyljer nation. How it is possible for eggs, wholly unprotected as 

 are these, to endure the rigors of winter, is still a mystery. Their 

 film-like shell, no thicker than a sheet of delicate note paper, seems 

 wholly insufficient to preserve unharmed the principle of life which it 

 is destined to protect against a temperature of zero, and even several 

 degrees lower. It might justly be regarded as a wise provision in 

 nature that so very few of the Lepidoptera are subject to the severe 

 ordeal of hybernating in the egg ; and in the few instances where this 

 occurs, the coverings which we find thrown over the eggs by the 

 instinct and ofttimes cunning skill of the parent moth, appear so 

 admirably adapted to afford them the required protection, that we 

 might be excusable if, from partial observation, we educed a law admit- 

 ting of no exceptions. Thus, among the European moths the follow- 

 ing instances occur : The Gipsy Moth (Ocneria dispar Linn.) has the 

 extremity of the body of the female thickly clothed with downy hairs, 

 which she employs for bedding, for singly enveloping, and for exteriorly 

 coating, in beautiful regularity, her deposit of eggs intended to survive 

 the winter. The Cnethocampa processioned (Linn.) deposits her eggs 

 in July on the trunks of trees, first coating the bark with a gummy 

 matter extruded from her abdomen, which she covers with hairs plucked 

 from her terminal tuft, and upon these places, in regular order, her 

 eggs, completing the operation by spreading over them additional hairs 

 of a color so resembling that of the bark as to serve the additional pur- 



* A Te<,ea Polyphemus which emerged with me on the 18th June, coupled during 

 the night, "oviposited the following day, and died on the 22d June. 

 \ THOUVELOT, in the American Naturalist, vol. 1, page 36. 



