BY R. J. TILLYARD. 341 



particularly when a storm is brewing — I have seen it carried 

 out in great haste, and apparently in considerable trepidation. 



A female captured by me, during oviposition, immediately 

 exuded a large cluster of small oval yellow eggs, over a hundred 

 in number. Portion of this cluster is shewn on Plate viii., fig.l. 

 Other females have exuded smaller clusters, and sometimes none 

 at all. There is no doubt that they can be persuaded to wash 

 out ova into a tube of water, while being held in the hand. 

 Unfortunately I was unprovided with one at the time mentioned, 

 so tliat I have had no opportunity of hatching eggs of this 

 species. 



On dredging the swamp late in December, I have found a few 

 very small larvae, as well as a few fully fed ones not yet emerged. 

 Hence I conclude that the ova hatch out in from two to three 

 weeks (the usual period in the case of other Corduline ova which 

 I have hatched). The larvse evidently grow rapidly and are full 

 fed within the year. I have taken larvae in September only 

 half-grown, which, fed up in my aquarium, have emerged before 

 Christmas. 



The young larva, which is very hairy, lies nearly buried in the 

 soft mud. In the aquarium, where they are supplied with fine 

 sand, larvse of all sizes throw up the sand all over them, and 

 scoop out in the process a depression into which they settle, 

 leaving just a slight outline of the body visible, and their eyes 

 and the top of the labium. I am not at all impressed with the 

 power of the labium as a weapon of offence. It is so short in 

 its reach that an insect would have to come very close up to it 

 before it could be captured and eaten. I think that insects and 

 other small water-animals are very seldom captured in this 

 manner, but that often the large cup-shaped labium is used to 

 draw in a large quantity of muddy water, which is then sifted 

 and examined by means of the numei'ous setse and the terminal 

 hook, and thus a considerable quantity of minute food is obtained. 



In one jar' I kept a nearly fullgrown larva without food for 

 some weeks. He never moved his position once. I then intro- 

 duced, all at once, about two hundred mosquito larvae. As these 



