The female now begins egg placing.  This requires time, as one of these big night moths deposits from three hundred and fifty to over six hundred eggs.  These lie in embryonic state in the abdomen of the female.  At her maturity they ripen rapidly.  When they are ready to deposit, she is forced to place them whether she has mated or not.  In case a mate has found her, a small pouch near the end of her abdomen is filled with a fluid that touches each egg in passing and renders it fertile.  The eggs differ with species and are placed according to family characteristics.  They may be pure white, pearl-coloured, grey, greenish, or yellow.  There are round, flat, and oblong eggs.  These are placed differently in freedom and captivity.  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.”  This has not ‘always’ been the case in my experience.  I have found eggs on stone walls, boards, fences, outbuildings, and on the bark of dead trees and stumps as well as living, even on the ground.  This also, has been the case with the women who wrote “Caterpillars and their Moths”, the most invaluable work on the subject ever compiled.

A captive moth feels and resents her limitations.  I cannot force one to mate even in a large box.  I must free her in the conservatory, in a room, or put her on an outside window br door screen.  Under these conditions one will place her eggs more nearly as in freedom; but this makes them difficult to find and preserve.  Placed in a box and forced by nature to deposit her eggs, as a rule, she will remain in one spot and heap them up until she is forced to move to make room for more.  One big female Regalis of the last chapter of this book placed them a thimbleful at a time; but the little caterpillars came rolling out in all directions when due.  In my experience, they finish in four or five nights, although I have read of moths having lived and placed eggs for ten, some species being said to have deposited over a thousand.  Seven days is usually the limit of life for these big night moths with me; they merely grow inactive and sluggish until the very last, when almost invariably they are seized with a muscular attack, in which they beat themselves to rags and fringes, as if resisting the overcoming lethargy.  It is because of this that I have been forced to resort to the gasoline bottle a few times when I found it impossible to paint from the living moth; but I do not put one to sleep unless I am compelled.

I never have been able to induce a female to mate after confinement had driven her to begin depositing her eggs, not even under the most favourable conditions I could offer, although others record that they have been so fortunate.  Repeatedly I have experimented with males and females of different species, but with no success.  I have not seem a polygamous moth; but have read of experiences with them.