| The Noon-day Fly | 2 |
| The Flea | 12 |
| May Flies | 100 |
| Silk-worm Moth | 500 |
| Other Moths | 1000 to 1600 |
| Wasps | 40,000 |
| Bees | 50,000 |
The most enormous number of all is produced by the queen of the white warrior ants. She deposits sixty eggs every minute, which is at the rate of 31,557,600 eggs in the course of a year, if we allow that she goes on laying at the same rate constantly, which is, perhaps, scarcely correct.
Were all the eggs produced by insects to be hatched and to bring forth living progeny, we may well ask what would become of mankind? Unquestionably in a short time their numbers would multiply so excessively as to sweep every green thing off the face of the earth, and man and beast would experience all the horrors of famine. But they are the sport of a thousand accidents, which destroy them and keep down the threatened excess of population in this world of busy creatures. And when the young larva has been put forth, this check upon their tendency to over multiplication is still more prominently displayed, as we may presently have occasion to remark.
FEROCIOUS LARVÆ OF DRAGON-FLY.
[Page 120].