EGGS. 171 



the Entomological Magazine, to which I would refer the 

 reader, namely, that insects have but three stages of exist- 

 ence, the foetal, the adolescent, and the adult, inasmuch as 

 in the majority of insects, the last is preceded by a distinct 

 but variable state, which I have above noticed as that of 

 the pupa. In like manner, I see no sufficient grounds for 

 rejecting the terms larva and pupa, and employing such 

 terms as infancy and adolescence in their stead. Indeed, 

 the setting aside of words employed in a technical sense, 

 and universally understood, merely because they may happen 

 to be in a foreign tongue, or may, even in their origin, have 

 been somewhat fanciful, appears to me to savour somewhat 

 of affectation, or even something worse than this, when the 

 perfectly quiescent and apparently lifeless state of an insect 

 is regarded as analogous to the adolescence of the higher 

 animals. 



Our present inquir}'^, therefore, resolves itself into four 

 distinct heads — namely, the egg, larva, pupa, and imago. 



I. The Egg. — The theory, omnia ex ovo (although 

 opposed by some \^Titers, who, not only in past times, but 

 also still, maintain the doctrme of spontaneous generation), 

 being, as it appears to me, universally true, the first branch 

 of our inquuy will be devoted to the situation in which 

 the eggs of insects are deposited, and the extraordinary 

 instinct exhibited by the female in this operation, and 

 which has been attributed to the influence of maternal 

 affection. As, however, it happens that, in the great 

 majority of instances, the female dies immediately after 

 depositing, and long previous to the hatching of her eggs ; 

 and as, moreover, it is erroneous to attribute such feel- 

 ings as love or affection to animals so low in the scale of 

 existence as insects, we would refer these proceedings to the 

 operation of that indefinable influence which is ordinarily 

 termed instinct. That this is a correct view of the matter 



