my collection of eggs are hatched, each isolated in a
large cup covered with a slip of glass which will moderate the
evaporation. What an interesting family! My vermin are swarming amid
the miscellaneous vegetable refuse with which I have furnished the
premises. They all move along with tiny steps, dragging their shells,
which they carry lifted on a slant; they come halfway out and suddenly
pop in again; they tumble over if they merely attempt to scale a sprig
of moss, pick themselves up again, forge ahead and cast about at
random.

Hunger, we can no longer doubt, is the cause of this agitation. What
shall I give my famished nurselings? They are vegetarians: there can
be no doubt whatever about that; but this is not enough to settle the
bill of fare. What would happen under the natural conditions? Rearing
the insects in cages, I find the eggs scattered at random on the
ground. The mother drops them carelessly, here and there, from the top
of the bough where she is refreshing herself by soberly notching some
tender leaf. The Taxicorn Clythra fits a long stalk to her eggs and
fixes them in clusters on the foliage. While I cannot yet make up my
mind, in the absence of direct observation, whether the new-born larva
cuts the suspension-thread itself, or whether the thread is broken
merely as a result of drying up, sooner or later these eggs are lying
on the ground, like the others.

The same thing must happen outside my cages: the eggs of the Clythrae
and the Cryptocephali are scattered over the ground beneath the tree
or plant on which the adult feeds.

Now what do we find under the shelter of the oak? Turf, dead leaves,
more or less pickled by decay, dry twigs cased in lichens, broken
stones with cushions of moss and, lastly, mould, the final residue of
vegetable matters wrought upon by time. Under the tufts of the
centaury on which the Golden Cryptocephalus browses lies a black bed
of the miscellaneous refuse of the plant.

I try a little of everything, but nothing answers my expectations very
positively. I observe, nevertheless, that a few disdainful mouthfuls
are taken, a little bit here, a little bit there, enough to tell me
the nature of the first layers which the grub adds to its natal
sheath. With the exception of the Taxicorn Clythra, whose egg, with
its suspension-stalk, seems to denote rather special habits, I see my
several charges begin to prolong their shell with a brown paste,
similar in appearance to t