THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
47 
that of pairing) and 50 the next night. 
The great majority were laid about the 
leno, either singly or in groups, in no case 
exceeding four. About a score were laid 
on willow leaves attached to twigs placed 
in water. The fourth night she laid no 
eggs, so I killed and dissected her, finding 
29 eggs in her body. I kept these batches 
separately : the second batch hatched on 
the tenth day, when, on looking to the 
first batch, I found them hatched and 
dead, being unprovided with food. The 
extracted eggs did not hatch at all. 
c. Smerinlhus Popuii. Paired on the 
night of the 31sl of July. The female 
(rather a small one) began to lay the 
next night: on the 8th of August she 
died, having laid nearly 150 eggs, and 
having survived her partner two days. 
On dissection I found four eggs, which 
did not batch. The others began to 
hatch on the 12th of August. 
D. Endromis Versicolora. Two females 
came out on the 24tli of March, 1859. 
After having had the society of one male, 
tinder the circumstances detailed (Intel, 
ix. 166), they began to lay their eggs in 
batches of from 4 to 44: I think 15 to 
25 is the average number. The last 
batch was laid ou the 28lh, the insects 
dying about three days afier. These two 
females were mated within a day or two 
after birth. A third female, which had 
to wait five or six days before I could 
provide her with a husband, laid all her 
eggs within a few hours after he had 
parted from her. I am told old maids of 
this species will live ten days or a fort- 
night ; bachelors I know live as long 
as this. Most of the batches were de- 
posited in the afternoon, perhaps because 
that happened to be the time when I 
could attend to them. When I speak of 
my attentions I do not mean that I was 
an accoucheur , — at least no more so than 
a farmer’s son I know, who told me he 
could always get new-laid eggs by chevy- 
ing the hens round the yard. My delicate 
attentions consisted simply of poking the 
ladies gently with a twig, or shaking 
them moderately till they began to crawl 
and flutter — an operation which usually 
ended in a “ lay.” Once I saw a batch 
laid spontaneously; this was about dusk. 
An interesting thing it is to see this in- 
sect deposit her eggs : she clings to the 
lower side of a twig, then, curling her 
abdomen till its extremity it almost close 
to the thorax, she presses its tip against 
one side of the twig, a slight writhing of 
the abdominal rings ensues, then the 
tapering ovipositor swells and withdraws, 
disclosing the large bright yellow egg, 
which is left glued by one of its sides to 
the twig ; next, a second egg is deposited 
below the first, and so on till the batch 
is about half completed, when the other 
side of the twig is adorned in a similar 
manner. Sometimes a third and even a 
fourth row are added, but then they are 
laid rather irregularly. I believe the in- 
sect uniformly works from the thorax 
tailwards. Generally the eggs are so 
placed that the lower ends of each row 
approximate, and the outer and upper 
ends may be seen projecting beyond the 
twig as one looks down on it. At the 
beginning of the process, especially in 
the earlier batches, scarcely more than a 
second intervenes between the exclusion 
of each egg, but towards the end this 
period is much lessened, till it sometimes 
reaches a minute. The eggs soon begin 
to lose their brightness. In about three 
days they become rather brown than 
yellow, and a day or two more leaves 
them of a pale purplish brown hue ; this 
colour grows gradually darker till it be- 
comes almost blackish just before they 
hatch — an operation which takes place in 
little more than a month, all of one batch 
hatching within a few hours. The 
greatest number of eggs I obtained from 
a single female was 174, the smallest 150. 
I dissected one that laid me 158, and 
found about thirty-five more, only eight of 
which seemed full sized and hard, the 
remainder being manifestly undeveloped. 
