but are discharged at random, simply dropping from the female; the noise caused by the dropping of the eggs of _Diapheromera femorata_ from the trees on which the Insects are feeding to the ground is said to resemble the pattering of raindrops. The eggs of this species often remain till the second year before they hatch. The eggs in the Phasmidae generally are of a most remarkable nature, and nearly every one who mentions them speaks of their extreme resemblance to seeds. Göldi[192] has suggested that this is for the purpose of deceiving Ichneumons; it is, however, on record that the eggs are actually destroyed by Ichneumons. It is worthy of notice that the eggs are shed like seeds, being dropped loosely and, as we have said, remaining on the ground or elsewhere, sometimes for nearly two years, without other protection than that they derive from their coverings. Each egg is really a capsule containing an egg, reminding us thus of the capsule of the Blattidae, which contains, however, always a number of eggs. Not only do the eggs have a history like that of seeds, and resemble them in appearance, but their capsule in minute structure, as we shall subsequently show, greatly resembles vegetable tissue. The egg-capsule in Phasmidae is provided with a lid, which is pushed off when the Insect emerges (Fig. 157). This capsule induced Murray to suppose that the egg contained within is really a pupa, and he argued therefrom that in the Orthoptera the larval stages are passed in the egg, and that the Insect after its emergence should be looked on as an active pupa that takes food. [Illustration: FIG. 152.—Eggs of Phasmidae: A, _Lonchodes duivenbodi_; B, _Platycrania edulis_; C, _Haplopus grayi_; D, _Phyllium siccifolium_. (After Kaup.)] The individuals of this group of Insects possess the power of reproducing a lost limb; and Scudder, who has made some experiments as to this,[193] states that if a leg be cut off beyond the {266}trochantero-femoral articulation, the parts remaining outside of this joint are dropped before the next moult, and are afterwards renewed either as a straight short stump in which the articulations are already observable, or as a miniature leg, the femur of which is straight and the tibia and tarsus curved into a nearly complete circle; in the former case, the leg assumes at the next moult the appearance that it has in the second case; this latter form is always changed at the succeeding moult into a leg resembling the normal limb in every respect excepting size, and the absence of the fourth tarsal joint (Fig. 153). If the leg be removed nearer to the body than the trochantero-femoral articulation the limb is not replaced. The sexes are frequently extremely different; the female is usually very much larger than the male. This latter sex often possesses wings when they are quite wanting in the other sex; the resemblance to portions of plants is often very much greater in the female than it is in the male.