44 



INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



prevent the aperture from being closed up by the ra 

 pid growth of the plant. 



Reaumur gives an interesting description of a 

 similar egg deposited by a common dung-fly, of a 

 yellowish-orange colour. (Scatophag^a siercorariay 

 Meigen). These eggs are furnished at the upper 

 end with two divergent pegs, \\hich prevent them 

 from sinking into the dung where they are placed by 

 the parent, while they are permitted to enter suffi- 

 ciently far to preserve them moist. Both circum- 

 stances are indispensable to their hatching; for 

 when Reaumur took them out of the dung, they 

 shrivelled up in a few hours, and when he immersed 

 them farther than the two pegs, they were suffocated, 

 and could not afterwards be hatched.* 



a, Dnng-fly Scatophaga Stercoraria) ; h c, front and side views 

 of its eggs magnified •■, d d d, & number of these eggs deposited in 

 cow dung. 



Before we began to study the habits of insects, we 

 found upon a lilac-twig, in the neighbourhood of 

 London, a singular production, which we took for a 

 very delicate fungus, and supposing it not to be 

 common, we carefully preserved the specimens; but 

 we have since learned, with no little surprise, that 

 these are the eggs of the lace-winged fly, ( Chrysopa 

 reticulata, Leach.) Rtaumur says that several 

 naturalists have described them as fungi, which is 

 not to be wondered at; lor they consist of a small 

 oval greenish-white head, similar to the apple-mould, 



* Reaumur, iv, 379. 



i 



