173 THE BUTTERFLY AND MOTH. 



f 5r the more important business of their lives. If they be d\s 

 tarbed while united, the female flies off with the male on her back, 

 who seems entirely passive on the occasion. 



P»ut the females of many moths and butterflies seem to have 

 assumed their airy form for no other reason but to fecundate 

 their eggs and lay them. They are not seen fluttering about in 

 quest of food, or a mate ; all that passes during their short lives, 

 is a junction with the male of about half an hour, after which 

 they deposit their eggs, and die, without taking any nourish- 

 ment, or seeking any. It may be observed, however, that in all 

 the females of this tribe, they are impregnated by the male by 

 one aperture, and lay their eggs by another. 



The eggs of female butterflies are disposed in the body like a 

 bed of chaplets, which, when excluded, are usually oval, and of 

 a whitish colour : some, however, are quite round, and others 

 flatted like a turnip. The covering or shell of the egg, though 

 solid, is thin and transparent ; and in proportion as the cater- 

 pillar grows within the egg, the colours change, and are dis- 

 tributed differently. The butterfly seems very well instructed 

 by nature in its choice of the plant or the leaf where it shall 

 deposit its burden. Each egg contains but one caterpillar, and 

 it is requisite that this little animal, when excluded, should be 

 near its peculiar provision. The butterfly, therefore, is careful to 

 place her brood only upon those plants that afford good nourish- 

 ment to its posterity. Though the little winged animal has been 

 fed itself upon dew, or the honey of flowers, yet it makes choice 

 for its young of a very different provision, and lays its eggs on the 

 most unsavoury plants — the rag-weed, the cabbage, or the nettle. 

 Thus every butterfly chooses, not the plant most grateful to it in 

 its winged state, but such as it has fed upon in its reptile form. 



All the eggs of butterflies are attached to the leaves of the fa- 

 vourite plant, by a sort of size or glue, where they continue un- 

 observed, unless carefully sought after. The eggs are sometimes 

 placed round the tender shoots of plants, in the form of bracelets, 

 consisting of above two hundred in each, and generally sur- 

 rounding the shoot, like a ring upon a finger. Some butterflies 

 secure their eggs from the injuries of air, by covering them with 

 hair plucked from their own bodies, as birds sometimes are seen 

 to make their nests ; so that their eggs are thus kept warm, and 

 also entirely concealed. 



All the tribe of female moths lay their eggs a short time after 

 hey leave the aurelia ; but there are many butterflies that 

 flutter about the whole summer, and do not think of laying till 

 the winter begins to warn them of their approaching end ; some 

 even continue the whole winter in the hollows of trees, and do 



