116 INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



just born, but they had not yet obtained their full 

 size.'* 



It is not, however, the aphides themselves who select 

 the snug winter retreat of an ant-hill, or who know 

 how to secure the careful nursing of the ants. All 

 this is the sole concern of the hitter, to secure for them- 

 selves a supply of the honey-dew, as it is erroneously 

 called, secreted by the aphides in spring. The ants, 

 it may be proper to remark, take similar care of their 

 own eggs (as well as of their cocoons, popularly sup- 

 posed to be their eggs) as was remarked by Sir E. 

 King, in the reign of Charles II. He informs us that 

 they dihgently gather together in a heap their true 

 eggs, which are small and white like the granules of 

 lump sugar, and upon these eggs they lie in multi- 

 tudes, ' I suppose,' says Derham, ' by way of in- 

 cubation.'! ' I have observed,' adds Sir E, King, 

 ' in summer, that in the morning they bring up those 

 of their young called ant -eggs [cocoons) towards the 

 top of the bank, so that you may, from ten o'clock till 

 five or six in the afternoon, find them near the top, — 

 for the most part on the south side. But towards 

 seven or eight at night, if it be cool, or likely to rain, 

 you may dig a foot deep before you can find them. 'J 



An interesting family of two-winged flies {Hip- 

 poboscidce^ Leach) resemble the aphides in some 

 points of their economy, though in others they are 

 singularly peculiar. R aumur discovered, what has 

 been recently confirmed by Dufour and others, that 

 the mothers not only hatch their eggs within the body, 

 but retain them there till they are changed into chry- 

 salides. R aumur gives a lively narrative of his 

 discovery, and the solicitude of his servants to find him 

 female flies ready to deposit what he at first took for 



* M. P. Huber on Ants, p. 245. 



t Derham, Phys. Theol. ii, 207. llth ed. 



t Phil. Trans. No. xxiii. 



