When we call to memory the intense voracity of the insect while a larva,--how insatiable its appetite, how extensive its ravages,--and contrast it with the perfect insect, we are struck with astonishment. Why is this, we ask, that in all cases insects eat less when they are fully developed, than when in their infancy and youth? It is as if a full-grown healthy man were to eat less than his little child a year or two old. The reason appears to be, that in the imago state no further changes (which consume a great deal of material, as may be imagined when we remember the loss of substance in every cast of the skin) are necessary; the insect only requires food sufficient to preserve its life and activity in the state to which it has come, and needs no laying up of stores of fat for future consumption. Fluttering awhile in glorious apparel, through a world of flowers and sunshine, the period of its life runs out, and its only further change is--to die, and return to its kindred dust. But, before this takes place, one last duty devolves upon the insect, which, unfulfilled, would leave the world at its death with one link in the chain of creation broken off,--this is, to make provision for the continuance of its species. We have already said, that insects, as a general rule, have been, no doubt in wisdom, destined to deposit their eggs not knowing what is to come forth of them, and never enjoying that happiness which is granted to many other beings,--the happiness of parental love. Some most interesting exceptions to this rule will have also been mentioned, in which a mother's love for her young has been exemplified in a remarkable manner.