44 THE BUTTERFLY VIVARIUM. 



examples will be sufficient to prove. One of our 

 common Field Flies, the Musca Meridionalis, is said 

 by Heauniur to lay only two eggs ; some other 

 Flies, six or eight ; while many species of the Fly 

 family lay thirty or forty, or more. The Moth of 

 the Silk-worm lays about five hundred ; the hand- 

 some Moth, Cossus IAgniperda, about one thousand ; 

 the Common "Wasp, thirty thousand ; and the Queen 

 Bee even a greater number, varying from forty to 

 fifty thousand in a season. 



Another insect, Termes Fatalis, lays at the rate 

 of sixty eggs per minute, or three thousand six 

 hundred per hour, making eighty-six thousand four 

 hundred per day, and per year at the rate of above 

 two hundred millions. She does not continue at 

 that rate, yet no greater example of fecundity exists. 

 Insects, in fact, increase so fast, that Linnyeus was 

 perfectly right when he asserted that three Flies 

 would consume the carcass of a horse sooner than 

 a lion ; which is easily conceived when we consider 

 the rapidity with which they would deposit suc- 

 cessive broods of their voracious larvae upon the 

 tempting carrion. 



It is very interesting to observe the different 

 methods pursued by different insects in placing 

 their eggs as they are laid, some laying them in 



