440 INSECTA. 



through the winter, to be fat in the autumn, and those which we know 

 to die in the winter to he lean, we may presume to reason from these 

 appearances in insects we know but little about. The same may be 

 said respecting the males ; for, if we find that although the females live 

 through the winter, as in tbe bee-tribe, and are fat in the autumn, yet 

 that the males are lean, then we may conclude that the males die*. 



And in regard to those insects of the longevity of which we know 

 nothing directly, if either their females, or males, or both, be fat or 

 lean in the autumn, we are to conclude of their living or not through 

 the winter accordingly. 



Insects have no ovaria s imil ar to those in many other animals ; the 

 small oviducts at their beginning are to be reckoned the ovaria of the 

 insect, for there the first parts of the egg are formed. 



Insects appear to lay a number of eggs in proportion to the trouble 

 they are at in providing for their hatching and rearing ; thus, although 

 the bee, wasp, hornet, &c. are at considerable trouble, yet it is trifling 

 when we consider the number of hands they have that do not breed, 

 but are employed on nursing ; but where the whole falls on one insect, 

 and the care is great, they then lay but few eggs, as, for instance, the 

 black-beetle (Geotrupes). 



All soft eggs of insects I imagine hatch soon after laying. 



There are three modes of propagation in insects respecting the hatch- 

 ing of their eggs. It is immaterial which we call first, second, or 

 third ; but we should call one first, so as to fix which we mean when 

 considering it. 



First Mode. — This is where an egg is laid in the autumn, keeps the 

 whole winter, is hatched in the beginning of summer, and the insect 

 forthwith goes through its changes, copulates, lays its eggs, and dies ; 

 it therefore does not live above four or five months ; although twelve 

 months elapse between the egg being laid and the insect from it laying 

 its own eggs. Such is the progress of the silk-moth. 



Second Mode. — This is where the egg is laid in the summer, earlier 

 than the former, is hatched in the same season, and about the same 

 time [as the other] ; but the insect, when arrived at the caterpillar 

 state, leaves its food, buries itself under ground and goes into the chry- 

 salis state ; in which it lies the whole winter, comes out in the summer 

 as a moth, lays its eggs and dies : so that this insect lives nearly a 



* The common bee is an exception to this rule ; for the females are not obliged to 

 be fat in the autumn, because they have a store ; and which, from analogy, would 

 prove them to live through the winter ; and this is a corroborating circumstance in 

 favour of the opinion that all those insects that are fat in autumn, and lay up no 

 store, live through the winter on that fat. 



