Others--such as those of the Large Heath butterfly (fig. 3), and the Queen of Spain Fritillary (fig. 2), simulate curious wicker-work baskets. The Peacock butterfly has an egg like a polygonal jar (fig. 4), while that of its near ally, the large Tortoise-shell (fig. 5), is simply pear-shaped, with the surface unsculptured and smooth {4} (fig. 5). The eggs of the Meadow Brown (fig. 6), and the Wood Argus (fig. 7), are globular--the former with lines on its surface like the meridian lines on a geographical globe, and a pretty scalloping at the top that gives a flower-like appearance to that portion; the latter has the whole surface honey-combed with a network of hexagonal cells. Such are a few of the devices that ornament the earliest cradle of the butterfly; but probably those of every species would well repay their examination to any one who possesses a microscope. Prompted by a most remarkable instinct, and one that could not have originated in any experience of personal advantage, the female butterfly, when seeking a depository for her eggs, selects with unerring certainty the very plant which, of all others, is best fitted for the support of her offspring, who, when hatched, find themselves surrounded with an abundant store of their proper food. Many a young botanist would be puzzled at first sight to tell a sloe-bush from a buckthorn-bush. Not so, however, with our Brimstone butterfly: passing by all the juicy hedge-plants, which look quite as suitable, one would think, she, with botanical acumen, fixes upon the buckthorn; either the common one, or, if that is not at hand, upon another species of rhamnus--the berry-bearing alder--which, though a very different looking plant, is of the same genus, and shares the same properties. She evidently works out the natural system of botany, and might have been a pupil of Jussieu, had she not been tutored by a far higher AUTHORITY. [Illustration: II.] {5} This display of instinct would seem far less wonderful did the mother butterfly herself feed on the plant she commits her eggs to. In that case, her choice might have appeared as the result of personal experience of some peculiar benefit or pleasure derived from the plant, and then this sentiment might have become hereditary; just as, for example, the acquired taste for game is hereditary with sporting dogs. Whereas the fact is, that a butterfly only occasionally, and as a matter of accident rather than rule, derives her own nectareous food from the flowers of the plant, whose leaves nourish her caterpillar progeny. So that this, as well as numberless other phenomena of instinct, remains a mystery to be admired, but not explained by any ordinary rule of cause and effect.