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The aphides went on in their usual lazy fashion throughout the summer, and in October they laid another lot of eggs, precisely like those of the preceding autumn. This case, as the practised observer himself remarks, is an instance of prudence unexampled, perhaps, in the animal kingdom, outside man. 'The eggs are laid early in October on the food-plant of the insect.
If the Bruchus is really a stranger, let us regard the bean as the original food-plant; if indigenous, the large vetch. Sometime in the remote past we received the pea, growing it at first in the prehistoric vegetable garden which already supplied the bean. It was found a better article of diet than the broad bean, which to-day, after such good service, is comparatively neglected.
Consequently this superb vetch is in general able to nourish without much loss the family confided to its pod. The number of eggs remains high even upon insufficient pods, because the original food-plant offered a copious provision, both in the multiplicity and the size of the seeds.
Consequently this superb vetch is in general able to nourish without much loss the family confided to its pod. The number of eggs remains high even upon insufficient pods, because the original food-plant offered a copious provision, both in the multiplicity and the size of the seeds.
Many butterfly pupæ are known to have the power of individual adjustment to the colours of the particular food-plant or other normal environment; and it is probable that the Australian Papilio referred to by Darwin possesses this power. Nutwood Cottage, Frith Hill, Godalming, July 9, 1881.
A moth in a natural location glues her eggs, often one at a time, on the under or upper side of leaves. Sometimes she dots several in a row, or again makes a number of rows, like a little beaded mat. One authority I have consulted states that "The eggs are always laid by the female in a state of freedom upon the food-plant which is most congenial to the larvae."
Some of the latter class, under stress or privation, can accommodate themselves to a new food very different in character and origin from that which is habitual to them; others have no elasticity in this respect, and must have their exact habitual food-plant or food-animal, unless they are to die of starvation.
Nature hasn't provided as providently for the human grub as for the insect one. A human grub isn't born upon a food-plant that is a house as well, nor is nature his tailor and his shoemaker. Peter wasn't blood kin to anybody in Riverton, so there was no home open to him.
It is possible that the choice of an improper food-plant may have as much to do with failures as the coldness and dampness of the English climate.
I broke up the mould and spread it under the magnifying-glass. It was like looking for needles in a haystack; but at last I recovered my little Cigales. They were dead, perhaps of cold, in spite of the bell-glass with which I had covered the pot, or perhaps of starvation, if the thyme was not a suitable food-plant. I give up the problem as too difficult of solution.
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