1 1' 1',1,'ITISII nUTHOPTERA. 



seem to be no records of eggs being found except in 

 winter and spring, and pairing probably takes place 

 in late autumn or early winter. I have myself found 

 eggs as early as Jan. 28, on which date in 1906 

 I discovered beneath some Scotch firs on Esher 

 Common, Surrey, about two or three inches under 

 ground, a female of this species, with her eggs, near 

 the -rhizome of a bracken-fern. They were placed in 

 a glass-topped box w^ith a little moss and soil. Later, 

 the mother was seen carefully hunting over the soil, 

 and, on finding an egg, picking it up and carrying it 

 away in her jaws to the shelter of the moss out of 

 sight. On Jan. 31 there was a little heap of 16 eggs. 

 Though they are fairly large, this seems -a small 

 number ; but perhaps some were lost when I inadver- 

 tently brought them to light in the woods. On 

 Feb. 2, and on the morning of Feb. 3, the mother 

 was apparently u brooding over her eggs," but after 

 that they seemed to be scattered and neglected. On 

 Feb. 7 they were in the same state, and, on examination 

 with a lens I found several, at least, bent in on one 

 sjde. I concluded that they were dead, and that the 

 mother knew the fact. 



This date (Jan. 28) seems early for eggs, at any 

 rate in England ; and indeed on April 25 of the same 

 year, in the New Forest, I found, in a piece of a 

 decaying branch on the ground, two females together 

 with some eggs and some very young nymphs. 



On 15 March, 1914, eggs were found in stumps 

 from which Scotch firs had been cut down on Esher 

 Common. A batch was brought home as well as a 

 female imago (with one branch of the callipers broken) 

 found at the same time. In captivity she did not seem 

 to take any notice of the eggs. Perhaps they were dead, 

 or, just possibly, they may not have belonged to her. 



In the usual way the eggs are laid in a little 

 covered-in excavation about an inch below the surface 

 of the ground or else in " convenient crevices of vege- 

 tation." The eggs are collected together by the fore 



