OF INSECTS. 225 



hatched, as in the silk- worm ; the other where she lives through the 

 winter following her being hatched, and in the summer lays her eggs 

 and dies ; as I fancy is the case with most flies. 



[ The same idea differently expressed."] — Insects which lay their eggs 

 in one season, which eggs do not hatch till the year following, I suspect 

 are only annual, or live only that season; such as the silk-worm 

 [Bombyx], black-beetle [Oeotrwpes]. But insects, whose eggs are laid 

 and hatched the same season, must live in two seasons ; at least they 

 must live one winter. 



[The same idea differently expressed.] — I have an idea that all insects 

 which lay their eggs in the autumn, to keep through the winter, to be 

 hatched the next summer, and wbich therefore were themselves hatched 

 that summer, such as the silk-worm, die themselves in that autumn ; 

 but that those which lay their eggs in the summer to be hatched in the 

 same summer, have the young of those eggs living through the winter to 

 lay eggs next summer, as their parent did ; and probably they them- 

 selves die in that autumn 1 . 



The males of some species of insects live through the winter, while 

 the males of other species die in the autumn of the same summer in 

 which they were bred. 



In the history of most insects there is a chasm which is with difficulty 

 made out ; but probably this is only in the insects of those countries 

 that have great variety in their seasons ; therefore such insects as 

 become inactive in cold weather, and have not provided for themselves, 

 as bees do, become obscure in that season. [The history of] those which 

 do not live above one season is also obscure, for it is not always known 

 when they die. The history of the silk-moth, which is of this kind, is 

 probably the best ascertained, because it can be domesticated ; and I 

 think we have reason to believe that all moths are of this kind [a like 

 nature]. But what becomes of many flies, and of all of the bee-tribe, 

 excepting the common bee, is what I do not know 2 . 



All of the flying class of insects make a complete history of themselves 

 every year ; so that at any one period of the year their history may be 

 begun, for it will be completed by the year following at the same period ; 

 for, although some live only the season they are produced in, such as 

 the silk-moth, yet the period of the life of their eggs joined with their 



1 [The three modes of stating the same proposition are here retained as exemplifying 

 the pains which Hunter took to record his observations and conclusions with ac- 

 curacy. He never could have destined such records to indiscriminate destruction.] 



2 [This may have been penned before the observations on the wasp, hornet, and 

 humble-bee had been completed.] 



