58 
LAYING ITS EGGS. 
which, if you copy faithfully on wood, will greatly add to 
the interest of this history. The fly is magnified, but 
the cross below it shows the natural size. The life of the 
fly is but another example of implicit obedience to Nature's 
universal law, the heaven-descended command, *^ increase 
and multiply." 
Very shortly after the due celebration of the nuptials, 
the female repairs to the under side of a leaf, and standing 
directly over its midrib, her back downwards, her wings 
closely folded, and her antennae stretched straight out and 
continually shivering, she bends her saw under her, so as 
to give her body a curve, and deposits her first egg on the 
rib itself; then a second, a third, and so on to the tip of 
the leaf, or as near the tip as she can find convenient 
standing-room. She then goes to one of the side ribs, then 
to another, and so on, till all the principal ribs are garri- 
soned with her eggs ranged in the prettiest rows ; the eggs 
are very long, and are placed lengthwise, end to end, like 
oblong beads on a string, yet not touching, for there is 
generally a space of about half an egg's length between 
each two. The eggs are very soft, and of a half-tran spa- 
rent while colour. After the first day the eggs begin to 
grow, and before the end of a week they have grown to 
three times their original size : the head of the egg is 
always towards the tip of the leaf, and is remarkable for 
having two black eyes, placed very far apart, and quite 
on the sides, indeed so far asunder are these eyes, that, 
like the behind buttons on the coat of a certain illustrious 
coachman, immortalized by Dickens, it is very difficult to 
bring both into the same field of view. 
It is seldom more than a week before the grub makes his 
exit from the egg and his entrance into active life, but the 
