190 GAIN OF A LOSS. 



box to observe them on my return home ; but a violent shower, 

 which came on at this moment, offered me a sight as singular 

 as unexpected. As soon as the rain was over, I saw the earth 

 strewed with females without wings. They were most likely 

 the very ones that I had seen in the air. On my 



return home, I placed my eight prisoners with some moist 

 earth in a garden pot covered with a glass. It was nine- 

 o'clock in the evening : at ten the females had lost their wings, 

 which I observed scattered here and there, and were hiding 

 themselves under the earth/' Tliree of the insects placed in 

 a box, without earth at the bottom, did not, on this account, 

 divest themselves of their wings ; but another, furnished with 

 a light earthen bed, no sooner perceived it, than " she extended 

 her tr'ni I/* (I'lth some effort ', brought ilieni before her head, crossed' 

 them m all directions, threw them from side to side, and pro- 

 duced so many singular contortions, that all four wings fell 

 off at the same moment. After tin's change she reposed, 

 brushed her corslet with her feet, then traversed the ground, 

 appearing to seek a place of shelter ; she partook of the honey 

 I gave her, and at last found a hiding place under some loose 

 earth that formed a little natural grotto." Huber repeated, 

 and describes minutely, the like experiments on several females 

 of different species, and always with the same results. 



Goidd (writing about 1747, and calling the winged females 

 " large ant-flies," the males small ones,) says " If you place 

 a number (of the former) in a box, the wings of many of them 



