Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/269

Rh eggs to the branches of trees. They hold there with such strength that they leave a scar on the bark, and even interfere with the nutrition of the branch. They are remarkable for being shaped like the stones that are cut for the construction of arches, and, "being larger at the summit than at the base, so that they join exactly, they arrange themselves in an arcade."

Some butterflies have eggs of very elegant shape, resembling a kind of little knob, fluted and girt with a small purple circular band.

The eggs of the dragon fly are elongated; at the upper end are a kind of flowerets like those of the louse nit. The gnat's

 1 and 2, eggs of the large and of the small cabbage Pieris; Fig. 3, egg of the Tristan butterfly (Papillo hyperantus); Fig. 4, egg of the admiral (Vanessa atalanta); Figs. 5 and 6, eggs of Polyommatus; Figs. 7 and 8, eggs of Dicranitra vinula, profile and front views; Fig. 9, egg of Pygaera tricephala; Fig. 10, egg of water scorpion (after Swammerdam); Fig. 11, egg of gnat; Fig. 12. nit of the louse (after Swammerdam, greatly magnified).

egg is like a skittle, the larger end of which is rounded, while the other end terminates in a short neck, like those of some liquor flasks (Fig. 11). The eggs of the ephemera can be observed only under the microscope, on black or blue paper. They are plano-convex and oblong. The membrane that envelops them has a nebulous appearance under the microscope. The eggs are white, like the inner coating of thin shell.

The Euryanthus horribilis of New Guinea, on the other hand, an orthopter of the singular tribe of the phasmids, which is twelve