64 GRAMMAR OF ENTOMOLOGY. 



spread over the whole area which she covers. The 

 laying of eggs is on a different system to that 

 of any other insect. 



201. The first egg is laid in the cottony sub- 

 stance, without causing any disturbance to the 

 points of attachment to the rind. It does not 

 stick, as most other insects' eggs do, but lies quite 

 loose in the cotton ; then another is laid, which 

 pushes the first a little further forwards ; and then 

 another and another, none of them being visible 

 from without ; so that all the eggs the female lays 

 she may be said to sit on like a hen, for that is 

 really the case. 



202. The female, as we often find to be the 

 case in insects, is, when arrived at perfection, a 

 complete bag of eggs. Now it will be observed, 

 that as she lays them, and then pushes them 

 under her body, they must raise up the under 

 skin of her body into a manifest concavity ; thus 

 the body itself becomes daily thinner and thinner, 

 and the pile of eggs concealed by it thicker and 

 thicker. 



203. The rapidity with which the eggs are laid 

 is surprising. If the female has been forcibly sepa- 

 rated from the twig to which she was attached, and 

 suspended on a pin, while at the height of her 

 laying, a string of eggs, all attached, like a delicate 

 necklace, an inch and three quarters in length, has 

 been found in a single night, although the coccus 

 exhibited no other symptoms of life. 



