EGGS GF APHIDES. 113 



Bonnet, however, whose opinion is entitled to 

 considerable authority, seems to think that the eggs of 

 aphides which are destined to survive the winter are 

 very different from other eggs; and he supposes that the 

 insect, in a state nearly perfect, quits the body of its 

 mother in that covering which shelters it from the cold 

 in winter, and that it is not, as other germs are in the 

 egg, surrounded by food, by means of which it is de- 

 veloped and supported. It is nothing more, he con- 

 jectures, than an asylum of which the aphides ap- 

 pearing at another season have no need; and it is for 

 this reason that some are produced naked and others 

 enveloped in a covering. If this be correct, the mo- 

 thers are not then truly oviparous, even in autumn, 

 when they deposit these pseudo-eggs; since their young 

 are almost as perfect as they ever will be, in the asy- 

 lum in which they are naturally placed at birth. It 

 was in vain that Bonnet endeavoured to preserve 

 eggs of this sort in his chamber till spring, in conse- 

 quence, he imagines, of the want of a certain degree 

 of moisture which they would have had out of doors 

 We have been more successful, through the precaution 

 of not taking the esjrs from their native tree till Feb- 

 ruary, and in 1830 we had a brood of several hundreds 

 produced of the oak aphis {Jiphis Qnercus).* 



The failure on the part of Bonnet leads us to re- 

 mark, with the younger Huber, that ants are more 

 skilful in this respect than naturalists, and anxiously 

 nurse, during winter, the eggs of aphides, which they 

 collect with great care in the autumn. The interest- 

 ing narrative of the discovery of this we shall give in 

 Huber's own words. 



' One day in November,' says he, ^ anxious to 

 know if the yellow ants {Formica flava) began to 

 bury tliemselves in their subterranean chambers, I de- 

 stroyed, with care, one of their habitations, story by 



* J. R. 



VOL. VI. lO* 



