532 PSYCHOLOGICAL PHYSIOLOGY. 



Raphidia live in the stems of pines, and here hunt up their food, which 

 consists in other insects ; \ve might doubtless find their eggs there also, 

 and presume that they are deposited by the mother at suitable places 

 upon the stem. The larvae of Myrmecoleon and Ascalaphus live in 

 the sand, the first, as we have before mentioned, in pitfalls made by 

 itself, where it watches for prey ; the mother doubtlessly therefore 

 conveys her eggs there, and deposits them in suitable places, sheltered 

 from the weather and from enemies. 



The same is doubtlessly the case among the Dictyotoptera. The 

 parasites, or Mallophagi, deposit their eggs at the base of the feathers 

 or hair of those animals upon which they dwell, and upon which their 

 young are to reside. It is not yet known where the eggs of the Thysa- 

 nura are placed. The eggs of the Ephemera and Libellitlce are de- 

 posited in the water, where the young also dwell, and they are laid singly, 

 the mother the whilst fluttering over the water. To conclude, the last 

 families of Psoci and Termites differ considerably from each other in 

 their modes of life. The majority of the species of the genus Psocus 

 live in the old stems of trees, and here appear to hunt for prey : Ps. 

 pulsalorius is a voracious enemy to collections of insects, and it will de- 

 vour dry animal substances, namely, the smaller soft-winged Diptera ; 

 it doubtlessly, therefore, deposits its eggs in the vicinity of such things, 

 and there leaves them to their fate. This the Termites do not do, but 

 they build dwellings similarly to the Hymenoptera, where they lead a 

 still more artificially regulated social life. We indeed possess several 

 treatises upon the remarkable economy of these insects, distributed 

 between the tropics (two species are found in the South of France), 

 and especially an early one by Smeathman *, but still their complete 

 economy is uot fully illustrated, in as far as these tracts contain so much 

 that is striking and divergent that it cannot well be compared with 

 the social life of other insects. Their community is said to consist of five 

 different members, namely, winged males and females, apterous neuters, 

 or soldiers, which have large heads furnished with strongly projecting 

 mandibles, unwinged pupae, having a smaller head and the rudiments 

 of wings only, and lastly, of similarly formed larvae, or workers, differ- 

 ing from the latter only in wanting the rudiments of wings. The last 

 of these construct the dwelling, in which they are assisted by the 



* Phil. Trans, vol. Ixxi. 1781, completed from more recent observations in Kirby and 

 Spence, vol. ii. 



