STATES OF INSECTS. 99 



vii. Colour. The colour of the eggs of insects is as va- 

 rious as their shape and sculpture. They are very often 

 white, those of some spiders like minute pearls a ; some 

 are yellow, as those of the silk-worm ; others orange, 

 such are the eggs of the bloody-nosed beetle ( Timarcha 

 tenebricosa) ; others again of a golden hue ; sometimes 

 they are of a sanguine red. I remember once being 

 much surprised at seeing the water at one end of a ca- 

 nal in my garden as red as blood : upon examining it 

 further I found it discoloured by an infinite number of 

 minute red eggs, belonging probably to some dipterous 

 insect of the Tipulidan tribe. There are also eggs of 

 every intermediate shade between red and black ; some 

 again are blue and others green. They are not always 

 of whole colours, for some are speckled like those of 

 many birds, of which I can show you specimens, that 

 are also shaped like birds' eggs; these I think were 

 laid by a common moth (Odenesis potatoria) ; others are 

 banded with different colours — thus the blue eggs of the 

 lappet-moth (Gastropacha quercifolia) are encircled by 

 three brown zones b ; others are brown with a white 

 zone c . 



Many eggs assume a very different colour after being 

 laid a few days. In general upon their first exclusion 

 they are white. Those of the chameleon-fly (Stratyomis 

 Chamceleon) which I once found in great numbers, ar- 

 ranged like tiles on a roof one laid partly over another, 

 on the under side of the leaves of the water-plantain, from 

 white become green, and then change to olive green. 

 Those of the hemipterous enemy of the larch, more than 



a N. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. xvi. 245. b Reaum. ii. 286. 



c Plat£; XX. Fig. 11. Sepp t. iv.f. 2. 



H 2 



