

176 THE INSECT WORLD. 
butterfly pumps this liquid up again when it is charged with sugar, 
and conducts it along as far as the base of its trunk, and beyond 
it. 
The life of the perfect insect is generally very short. Like 
nearly all other insects, they die as soon as they have propagated 
their species. The female lays her eggs, which vary in shape, 
on the plant which is to nourish her progeny. The colour is 
also very various, and passes through all sorts of shades. At the 
moment they are laid, many are covered with a gummy substance, 
insoluble in water, which serves to stick them on the plant. 
In some species, the mother lays her eggs on the trunks of trees, 
and covers them with down or with the hairs which cover her 
abdomen, so as to preserve them from cold and damp. She may 
also hide them entirely under a whitish, foamy substance. Some 
do not lay more than a hundred eggs; others lay some thousands. 
To bring the history of the Lepidoptera to an end, it only 
remains for us to give a sketch of their classification, and to point 
out some species remarkable, either on account of their beauty, 
or from their utility. 
We see during the day anon flying in our gardens, in 
meadows full of ote or in the alleys of woods. Towards 
evening, at the sombre hour of twilight, the stroller is some- 
times surprised to see pass near him large moths, with a heavy 
and unequal flight, or if one go into a garden on a beautiful 
calm summer’s night, bearing a ight, one sees a crowd of moths 
flying from all parts towards it. 
It is on account of these different hours at which the Lepidoptera 
show themselves, that naturalists for a long time divided them 
into diurnal, crepuscular, and nocturnal. This division was simple, 
convenient, and seemed founded on nature. Unfortunately, the 
night fliers of the old authors donot all fly by night; some 
species, classed by the old naturalists among the crepuscular or 
nocturnal, show themselves in the very middle of the day, seek- 
ing their food in hottest rays of the sun. In the’ regions near 
the poles they appear during the day, and in other countries they 
are more or less friends of the twilight. 
So as not to multiply methodical divisions, we will confine our- 
selves to classing the Lepidoptera into two sections. 
