The eggs of birds are, in most instances, hatched by the warmth of the mother, who sits for a certain time covering them with her wings and downy breast. But the exception to the rule in insects is that the mother has anything to do with rearing her young brood; the cases in which this takes place will be noticed in our next chapter. Generally speaking, the eggs of insects are hatched by the increasing temperature of the air in spring. The following sketch, extracted from Mr. Darwin's interesting Journal of the Voyage of the Beagle, sets before us, in a very pleasing manner, the awakening influence of this season to all nature:--"When we first arrived at Bahia Blanca, September 7th, 1832, we thought nature had granted scarcely a living creature to this dry and sandy country. By digging, however, in the ground, several insects, large spiders, and lizards, were found, in a half-torpid state. On the 15th a few animals began to appear, and, by the 18th, (three days from the equinox,) everything announced the commencement of spring; the plains were ornamented by the flowers of a pink wood-sorrel, wild peas, _oenotheræ_, and geraniums; and the birds began to lay their eggs. Numerous beetles were crawling about, while the saurian tribe, the constant inhabitants of a sandy soil, darted in every direction."
As to the torpid animal and buried seed, so to the carefully laid up egg, the returning warmth of the air is the signal for the commencement of life. The winter-clouds roll reluctantly back, as the genial days of spring advance, and the changes which are to have their accomplishment in the production of a living being out of the minute object before us, are set in movement as the days grow bright and pleasant. That the hatching of the egg, in most cases, is due chiefly to the stimulating influence of heat, is now well ascertained. The school-boy who has ever amused himself with silk-worms can well assure us of this fact, for he is in the habit of hatching the insect's eggs by carefully wrapping them in paper, and keeping them in his waistcoat-pocket, where they have all the comfort and warmth of his body to bring them forward. In countries where the silk-worm is reared, women carry them in their bosom, and by this means cause the young larva to come forth from the egg in much less time than it would naturally occupy. By removing a twig of a plant upon which in the preceding autumn an insect may have been found to have deposited its eggs, into a warm room, an opportunity will be had of putting this operation practically to the test. In a short time it will be found that the eggs are all hatched, and that a number of minute larvæ are crawling actively about, while their brethren in the snow-covered fields are yet safely asleep in the shell.