Page:The fairy tales of science.djvu/265

 eggs of insects we shall have cause to wonder at their elaborate carving and beautiful forms. It is impossible to convey to the reader an adequate idea of the elegant design and delicate sculpturing of some of these insect-eggs; few of which, be it observed, are what is commonly termed egg-shaped. It is impossible to account for the strange diversities of form in these egglets; thus, in the small and great peacock butterflies, which differ in little but size, the egg of the first is a cylinder with eight prominent ribs, while that of the latter is shaped like a Florence flask and has no ribs. Why the little peacock should escape from a barrel, and the big one from a bottle, is a problem as yet unsolved. Here are the eggs of four different members of the butterfly family. To the unaided eye they appear mere uninteresting dots, about the size of a pin's head, but if we examine them microscopically, we shall find that nature has spared no pains in decorating these minute objects. One of these eggs is an elegant turban, having a round button in the centre of the depressed crown; another is a very elaborate pound-cake; the third a fairy foot ball, covered with a network of extremely minute hexagonal meshes; and the fourth is a little spherical summer-house of rustic-work roofed with flat tiles. The last simile is a little strained, as it is not easy to imagine a rustic arbour shaped like a balloon, but we must remind the reader that we meet with forms in the invisible world that cannot be likened to any object