DEPOSITION OF THE EGGS OF INSECTS. 173 



endowed with a comparative insensibility to pain. 

 " The probation" of this point, bears, I hope, 



" no hinge nor loop 



To hang a doubt oxi."— Othello, Act III. Sc. III. 



When once the Lepidoptera have attained their 

 perfect state, their lives are comparatively of short 

 duration. To provide for the continuance of the 

 species, seems, if not the sole, at least the principal 

 object of their existence. The utmost care is 

 evinced in selecting a proper place for depositing 

 the eggs, and in attaching them to that place when 

 chosen. Occasionally, however, some adverse cir- 

 cumstance happens to the parent, and prevents her 

 usual procedure. In such cases, her primary object 

 seems to be to deposit the eggs, and she does so even 

 when dj'ing. Hence the Entomologist will frequently 

 find in bis collecting-box, the eggs of the individuals 

 he has taken during his excursion, and which had 

 been transfixed and were apparently lifeless. On 

 such occasions, the eggs are propelled almost in a 

 continuous stream, and with astonishing rapidity. 

 Their vast number is of itself a subject of surprise. 

 On one occasion, a female of the ghost-moth {Hepia- 

 lus humuli), had flo^^^l into my parlour and was 

 secured. In less than half-an-hour afterwards, when 

 the moth was quite dead, the number of eggs she 

 had projected was such as to excite our wonder. We 



