4 liUlTERFLY COLLECTOll'S 



for llic spciirity of the egg. Many insects inclose them in a 

 silken web ; others cover them with a coat of liair, plucked 

 from their own bodies ; and others glue them to the leaves 

 n))0n which they are dejiositcd, that they may not be shaken 

 off by the wind, or washed away by tlie rain. Some again 

 make incisions into the leaves, and hide an egg in each 

 incision ; whilst others envelope their eggs with a soft sub- 

 stance which forms the first aliment of the young animal ; 

 and some again make a hole in the earth, and having stored 

 it with a suflficicnt quantity of i)roi)cr food, deposit their eggs 

 in it.' 



Butterflies in the winter generally lie hid within their 

 cases, with their legs, antennse, and wings closely folded 

 over the breast and sides, and are nourished by the sniTound- 

 ing liquor like the fcetiis of other animals ; trom whence, at 

 the approach of spring, they awake and become inhabitant.s 

 of the au-, when they always find their favorite aliment 

 provided in abundance before them. 



Nine-tenths probably of the extensive Order Lepidoptera 

 pa.ss the winter in the pupa state, which indeed is the case 

 with all the numerous species that feed on annual plants ; 

 because as these plants have no local habitation, dying one 

 year and springing up from seed in another quarter the next, 

 the eggs deposited on them in autumn would not escape 

 destruction ; and even were the larva: hatched before winter, 

 and hybemate in that state, they would have no certainty 

 of being in the neighbom-hood of their appropriate food the 

 next spring. By wintering, however, in the pupa state, these 

 accidents are provided against, t 



The greater part oftho.se Lepidopterous insects which come 

 forth in the spring or summer, perish or disappear at the 



• Paley's Nalural Theology, p. 356, 357. 

 1 Introdiiclion to Eiiloniology, vol. il. p. 435. 



