THE LIFE HISTORY. 
3 
long tongue which, when not in use, is coiled into a close spiral 
between the palpi. This reaches its greatest development in some 
Tongue of Sphinx. 
of the sphinx moths, enabling them while on the wing to extract 
the nectar from the deepest flowers. 
While most of the lepidoptera have six well-developed legs, a 
group of butterflies, the Nymphalidce , have the first pair so small and 
weak that they are probably of very little use to the insect. The 
legs are used almost wholly for clinging to substances while the 
insects are at rest, as very few of the lepidoptera walk or run to 
any extent. 
The butterflies are day flyers, and in the hot sunny hours they 
sport through the woods and fields. The moths fly mostly by night, 
and are frequently more hairy and larger bodied than the butterflies, 
while their colors are usually softer and more blended. 
The life history of one of the insects we are considering, from 
the egg to the fly, is most interesting. The perfect insect lays its 
eggs, by a wonderful faculty, which for want of a better word we 
call instinct, upon or near the species of plants which are to furnish 
the food for the future caterpillars. 
These eggs, often very minute, are of various shapes and are 
ornamented in a variety of ways. Some are oblong; others almost 
perfect spheres; others again flattened above and below, while their 
outlines are circular. With these shapes go smooth and sometimes 
highly polished surfaces. Some resemble low vases with turned-over 
and fluted edges, while they are adorned with raised patterns or 
sharply cut grooves or circular pits, or in other examples studded 
with nodules or even with spines. Others bear a general resem¬ 
blance to a lady’s work-basket in shape and reticulated ornamentation. 
Some have a lid or cover, which is raised by the caterpillar when 
about to emerge from the shell. They vary too, in color as well as 
in shape and ornamentation; some are white or of a pearly lustre, 
some blue or gray, while a large number are green, and a few brown 
