STATES OF INSECTS. 93 



it finds within the egg, than from any absorption from 

 without. 



vi. Shape. We are accustomed to see the eg-crs of dif- 

 ferent species of oviparous animals so nearly resembling 

 each other in form, that the very term egg-shaped has been 

 appropriated to a particular figure. Amongst those of 

 birds,"with which we are most familiar, the sole variations 

 are shades of difference between a globular and oval or 

 ovate figure. The eggs of insects, however, are confined 

 by no such limited model. They differ often as much, 

 both as to their shape, sculpture, and appendages, as one 

 seed does from another; and it is not improbable that, 

 if d i dy studied, they would furnish as good indications 

 of generic distinctions as Gsertner has discovered in 

 those of plants. Their most usual form indeed is glo- 

 bular, oval, or oblong, with various intermediate modifi- 

 cations. We meet with them ovate, or of the shape of 

 the common hen's egg, flat and orbicular, elliptical, co- 

 nical, cylindrical, hemispherical, lenticular, pyramidal, 

 square, turban-shaped, pear-shaped, melon-shaped, boat- 

 shaped, of the shape of an ale-stand, of a drum, &c. a , 

 and sometimes of shapes so strange and peculiar, that 

 we can scarcely credit their claim to the name of eggs. 

 Thus the eggs of the gnat are oblong and narrow, or 

 nearly cylindrical, having at the top a cylindrical knob b , 

 so as to give them the precise form of the round -bottomed 

 phial sometimes used by chemists : those of the common 



* Eggs of various shapes are given Plate XX. Fig. 3—23. See also 

 Brunnich. Entomologia 4. N. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. xvi. 245. Reaum. if. 

 t. iii. iv. xiv. xxvi. xxvii. &c. 



b Plate XX. Fig. 18. 



