ENTOMOLOGY. 
73 
amount may be said to be not uncommon. Aleyrodes 
proleteUa , a small liemipteron, is the only recorded 
insect, except the white ant, that makes any approach 
to the last named number, and even it does not ex- 
ceed 200,000. An insect resembling an ant, possi- 
bly a Mutilla, is said to have laid 80,000 in one day. 
The queen bee may occasionally produce 50,000 eggs 
in a season, but the ordinary amount does not ex- 
ceed 5000 or G000. The female wasp sometimes 
lays about 30,000, but commonly not more than 2000 
or 3000 ; cocci between 2000 and 4000 ; some moths 
a thousand or upwards ; but in far the greater num- 
ber of instances, even in regard to the more prolific 
kinds, the number may be expressed by three 
figures ; and, in the vast majority of cases, the eggs 
certainly do not amount to a hundred. Generally 
speaking, carnivorous species arc least prolific, and 
herbivorous ones most so ; an ordination in harmony 
with the supply of food, which is limited and pre- 
carious in the former case, constant and almost in- 
exhaustible in the latter. 
Our acquaintance with the composition both of the 
exterior and interior parts of insects' eggs, is far from 
being complete. The integument generally offers but 
little resistance, being a mere membrane, not unfre- 
quently so transparent as to reveal the changes that 
take place within ; at other times it is hard, dense, and 
ftpaque. The former is the case with eggs deposited in 
the earth, (as takes place in many Coleoptera, Orthop- 
tera, and Hemiptera,) the moisture and protection of 
which are probably indispensable for preventing the 
