INSECTS IN GENERAL. 77 



sited with a certain quantity of nutriment, suited to its early 

 age, in a membranous shell of more or less solidity ; the 

 configuration of these eggs, and the manner in which they 

 are laid and disposed are most admirable, considered in refe- 

 rence to the future wants of the animal ; some are soft, and 

 the shell of others sometimes exhibits an extraordinary degree 

 of solidity. Some are agglomerated, pasted together, united 

 by common or distinct pedicles ; they are of various shapes, 

 spherical, oval, cylindrical, flat, depressed, compressed, 

 prismatic, angular, &c. Some are enveloped with protecting 

 substances, proper to keep off the animals that might devour 

 them. These matters consist sometimes of odours, sometimes 

 bristling points, sometimes tight and impenetrable coverings. 

 The female also employs, to protect her progeny, many artful 

 stratagems, even to covering them with her own body, which 

 dries up and guards them like a buckler, as is exemplified 

 in the cochineal insects. The colour of these effffs varies 

 very much according to the species, and the time elapsed 

 from their deposition, because in the latter case, the deve- 

 loped germ communicates its tints to the membranes which 

 enfold it. Some of these eggs exclude in the body of the 

 mother ; this is the case with those of the pucerons at certain 

 periods of the year, with those of the blue meat-fly, of the 

 hippoboscus, and in fine, with all the insects which on that 

 account are termed ovoviparous. 



The sexes are most usually distinct and separated, that is 

 to say existent in different individuals ; some are male and 

 others female. The number of individuals of both sexes, 

 is in general pretty nearly alike ; nevertheless, there are 

 some, which from infancy, are doomed never to have the 

 sexual organs completely developed. When this anomaly 

 occurs, it is the females which are deprived of the (at least 

 apparent) sexual organs ; they are then called neuters or 

 mules. This phenomenon is observable in some genera of 



