The frosts have disappeared, the air brightens, the sun loses its pale aspect, and glows with a more golden face. The days lengthen, the breeze has lost its penetrating chilliness, gentle showers descend and water the earth, and there is a general voice heard all over creation,--"Spring has come!" The eggs of a thousand insect species have already perceived its presence, and the newly-awakened beings within hasten to welcome it by bursting from the shell, their long occupied, but now for ever forsaken dwelling-place. Sometimes the young larva bursts through the thin walls of the shell by main force, or eats its way through by means of its jaws, which is occasionally a task of many hours' duration. "In many instances, however," write Messrs. Kirby and Spence, "the larva is spared this trouble, one end of the egg being furnished with a little lid, or trap-door, which it has but to force up, and it can then emerge at pleasure. Such lids are to be found in the eggs of several butterflies and moths. The eggs of a species of bug, besides a convex lid, are furnished with a very curious machine, as it would seem, for throwing it off. This machine is dark brown, of a horny substance, and of the shape of a crossbow; the bow-part being attached to the lid, or pushing against it, and the handle, by means of a membrane, to the upper end of the side of the egg."
But if, in our account of the various attendants on the opening of spring, we had mentioned every circumstance that takes place at that time, alas! for any poor insects, or, at least, for a large number of them, who should be hatched at that time. The warm air and gentle shower, and brighter sky, would ill satisfy them in the absence of all _food_, and they would be born, by a cruel destiny, only to starve and die. We well know this is not the case; but there are, probably, few persons who have ever thought much upon the admirable arrangement by which the occurrence of such a calamity to many of the insect tribes is avoided. We need scarcely remind the reader that in the opening sentence of the last paragraph there is one most important omission in the sketch of the phenomena of returning spring; that is, that there is no mention of what takes place in _plants_,--of the putting forth of their young and tender leaves. Now, as a majority of insects in the larva state are vegetable-feeders, we can easily understand that the unfortunate little beings if hatched before the appearance of leaves would, without doubt, quickly perish for lack of proper food. Yet the returning warmth of the air is all that is requisite to call the insect into existence, and if by the time it is ready to burst from the shell there is not food all prepared for it, it must die. The difficulty has been beautifully provided for; and perhaps, few other instances of the wisdom of the Creator in forming the insect world are so full of instructive thought as this. It has been ordained, then, that soon as winter is over, the plant is _first_ to obey the voice of spring, and to awake; and the bursting buds on its lower boughs are already full charged with sap long before the young insect being that is to be fed therewith has left the shelter of the egg.