252 COLOUR OF INSECT EGGS. 



in brilliancy by the changing and metallic hues exhibited on 

 the scaly sides of numerous inhabitants of the deep. These 

 again are equalled, if not outvied, by many of the serpent race ; 

 and perhaps the most richly painted of them all would show, 

 but for their superior size, with diminished lustre beside some 

 of the miniature and begemmed encasements of insect life. 



Of these encasements the first are, usually, egg-shells, for 

 which reason we shall make them our first objects of examina- 

 tion. This also is the season when a variety of these tiny 

 caskets, each preserving its jewel life from the inclemencies of 

 winter, are exposed to view on trunks of trees, branches, and 

 leafless stalks, while the prying eye may detect others more 

 cunningly deposited within crevices of wood or bark. Our un- 

 aided eye-sight, although it may discover, serves not, of course, 

 to appreciate or even to discern the beauty of these minute 

 eggs which, as well as seeds, their vegetable correspondencies, 

 are excellently adapted to microscopic observation. Through 

 this we shall speedily discover that even the first envelope of 

 insect sensitivity is elegantly ornamented, presenting infinite 

 variety of pattern and of colour. As respects the latter, the 

 eggs of moths and butterflies alone furnish specimens of pink, 

 purple, yellow, gray, green, brown, red and yellow, green and 

 white, &c. ; but it is less with reference to their painting than 

 their carving, that these and others are especially to be noted. 

 In form they are cylindric, flat, prismatic, angular, square, 

 boat-shaped, flask-shaped, anything, perhaps, but exactly egg- 



