The Life of an Insect: being a history of the changes of insects from the egg to the perfect being.
Science
The Life of an Insect: being a history of the changes of insects from the egg to the perfect being.
Insects
winter is over, the plant is _first_ to obey the voice of spring, and
to awake; and the bursting buds on its lower boughs are already full
charged with sap long before the young insect being that is to be fed
therewith has left the shelter of the egg.
One of the talented authors of the Introduction to Entomology relates
a pleasing anecdote in reference to this simple, yet admirable
arrangement, and mutual adjustment of these two events,--the awakening
of life in the plant and in the insect. "On the 20th of February, 1816,
observing the twigs of the birches in the Hull Botanic Garden to be
thickly set, especially about the buds, with minute oval black eggs
of some insect with which I was unacquainted, I brought home a small
branch, and set it in my study, in which is a fire daily, to watch
their exclusion. On the 28th of March I observed that a numerous brood
of _aphides_ had been hatched from them, and that two or three of the
lower buds had expanded into leaves, upon the sap of which they were
greedily feasting. This was full a month before either a leaf of the
birch appeared, or the egg of an _aphis_ was disclosed in the open
air." Thus showing that the coming to life of the branch and of the
insects resting on it, was beautifully arranged to take place each at
the proper time.
It is very singular to add, that as some trees acquire their leaves
earlier or later than others, the eggs of insects which are deposited
on them, never are hatched before the leaves appear, even while some
of their companion eggs of a different species, and placed, therefore,
on different trees, may have long since sent their young into the
world. Thus, we learn that not only has God been pleased to arrange
_generally_ the hatching of the eggs of insects, and the putting
forth of the leaves of trees, so that the latter shall precede the
former, but it has also been ordered that the eggs deposited on each
_particular_ plant shall be hatched just when the time of that plant's
putting forth its leaves shall arrive, at whatever period that may be.
This may be more readily comprehended by an example: thus, there is no
difference, so far as we can perceive, between the eggs of the little
insects just mentioned as feasting on the leaves of the birch, and
those whose food is the leaf of the ash; yet the birch will be in leaf
nearly a month before the ash-tree, and the eggs deposited on it will
therefore be hatched a month before those placed upon the ash, although
both trees are in the same position with regard to warmth, and may
even, perhaps, be within a yard or two of one another. What a beautiful
and mysterious link is this, between events so disproportionately
important as the clothing of a great tree with its leafy garments and
the coming to life of a little throng of beings, whose dwelling-place
is a small twig, and whose world a green leaf! Yet it was not too
insignificant a matter for Him to arrange whose dwelling-place is
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