80 STATES OF INSECTS. 



hatching, proceed from the upper end, cannot disturb 

 the adjoining eggs. Many indeed have a conformation 

 purposely adapted to this position, as the hemisphaerical 

 eggs of the puss-moth (Cerura Vinula), which have the 

 base by which they are gummed membranous and trans- 

 parent, while the rest is corneous and opaque. The 

 same ready exit to the larva is provided for in the oblong 

 eggs of the emperor moth (Saturnia Pavonia), which 

 are piled on their sides in two or more lines like bottles 

 of wine in a bin a . 



Where the larva does not emerge exactly from the 

 end of the egg other arrangements take place. The 

 whirlwig-beetle (Gyrinus natator) and the saw-fly of the 

 gooseberry &c. (Tenthredo jiava L.) dispose theirs end 

 to end in several rows ; the former upon the leaf of some 

 aquatic grass, the rows being parallel 5 , the latter gummed 

 to the main nerves of gooseberry or currant leaves, the 

 direction of which they follow c . 



But the lackey-moths (Lasiocampa Neustria, castren- 

 sis, &c.) adopt a different procedure. As their eggs, 

 which are laid in the autumn, are not to be hatched until 

 the spring, the female does not, like most other moths, 

 place them upon a leaf, with which they might be blown 

 by the winter's storms far from their destined food, but • 

 upon the twig of some tree, round which she ranges them 

 in numerous circles. If you examine your fruit-trees, 

 you can scarcely fail to find upon the young twigs col- 

 lections of these eggs, which are disposed with such ad- 

 mirable art, that you would take them rather for pearls, 

 set by the skilful hand of a jeweller, than for the eggs of 



a Rosel, ix. 157. t. 265? b Ibid. iii. 197. 



c See above. Vol. I. p. 195. 



