1892. J 



THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 



135 



suggest that some of the stages between the egg and the perfect insect, 

 end by a sort of leap ; as when the chrysaHs bursts open and the 

 imago escapes. The suddenness is more apparent than real. Like 

 the transformation scene in a pantomime, every part of the spectacle 

 has been elaborately prepared, and is in its place waiting for the wave 

 of the magic wand 



I must venture to detain you for a moment longer on this point. 

 It is not merely that the wings, and the legs, and antennae, have been 

 rudely prefigured in the pupa : every spot and hair and scale have 

 had their specialised antecedents in the chrysalis and in the larva ; 

 and I am now about to ask you to trace this wondrous development 

 back still further, and to recognise within the egg, transformations 

 fully as marvellous as any that occur after the tiny caterpillar has 

 burst the shell. 



To begin then with the fertilised egg. The whole insect with its 

 peculiar characters is all virtually there. I do not say that life and 

 food and warmth will not influence and modify the characters of the 

 organs. As I once had the honour to shew you, Araschnia Levaiia may 

 take a prorsa form, but every spot has been modified upon a levana 

 basis. Long inter-breeding or a lucky catch may give you a nearly 

 white Garden Tiger, but it will be a Garden Tiger still ; and all the 

 artifices of the most skilful entomologist will never raise a Cream-spot 

 from the egg of a Garden Tiger. It is, then, justifiable to say of the 

 egg of a buttertiy — the butterfly is virtually ail there, down to its 

 faintest marking. How much we can see of it with our best 

 microscopes is another question. We will try to see a little of it 

 presently. 



But that wondrous something, imparted by the parents, which 

 keeps the form true, whilst the egg differs in no essential character 

 from the egg of a beetle, a crab, a snail, a fish, a bird, or a monkey — 

 that we shall not see nor understand. What then shall we see ? If we 

 would see the first stage of a fertilised egg of a butterfly, we must be 

 quick about it, for changes of great importance take place rapidly, and 

 many stages occur before the butterfly lays its egg. 



It is not essential for an egg to have a shell. Very convenient it 

 may be, no doubt. But an egg may be truly an egg without it. 

 Many eggs never have a hard shell; as in the case of animals that 

 bring forth their young alive. 



Bat let us suppose that we have the fertilised egg all right in its 

 veiy first stage. What is it like? It is a small cell filled with a 

 granular jelly-like substance, and somewhere in it there is a small 

 spot — the nucleus. The granular parts are pabulum or food, and the 

 jelly-like portion is protoplasm. Not, however, an example of 

 protoplasm in general, there is no such thing. It is the highly 



