“The females,” he says, “have a shiny patch on the upper part of their body, near the hind-quarters. The shape and gloss of this disk attracted my attention the first time that I saw it. I was holding a pin, with which I touched it, to examine its structure. The contact of the pin produced a little spectacle that surprised me: I saw a cloud of tiny spangles at once detach themselves. These spangles scattered in every direction: some seemed to be shot into the air, others to the sides; but the greater part of the cloud fell softly to the ground. “Each of those bodies which I am calling spangles is an extremely slender lamina, bearing some resemblance to the atoms of dust on the Moths’ wings, but of course much bigger.... The disk that is so noticeable on the hind-quarters of these Moths is therefore a heap—and an enormous heap—of these scales.... The females seem to use them to wrap their eggs in; but the Moths of the Pine Caterpillar refused to lay while in my charge and consequently did not enlighten me as to whether they use the scales to cover their eggs or as to what they are doing with all those scales gathered round their hinder part, which were not given them and placed in that position to serve no purpose.” You were right, my learned master: that dense and regular crop of spangles did not grow on the Moth’s tail for nothing. Is there anything that has no object? You did not think so; I do not think so either. Everything has its reason for existing. Yes, you were well-inspired when you foresaw that the cloud of scales which flew out under the point of your pin must serve to protect the eggs. I remove the scaly fleece with my pincers and, as I expected, the eggs appear, looking like little white-enamel beads. Clustering closely together, they make nine longitudinal rows. In one of these rows I count thirty-five eggs. As the nine rows are very nearly alike, the contents of the cylinder amount in all to about three hundred eggs, a respectable family for one mother! The eggs of one row or file alternate exactly with those in the two adjoining files, so as to leave no empty spaces. They suggest a piece of bead-work produced with exquisite dexterity by patient fingers. It would be more correct still to compare them with a cob of Indian corn, with its neat rows of seeds, but a greatly reduced cob, the tininess of whose dimensions makes its mathematical precision all the more remarkable. The grains of the Moth’s spike have a slight tendency to be hexagonal, because of their mutual pressure; they are stuck close together, so much so that they cannot be separated. If force is used, the layer comes off the leaf in fragments, in small cakes always consisting of several eggs apiece. The beads laid are therefore fastened together by a glutinous varnish; and it is on this varnish that the broad base of the defensive scales is fixed.