122 INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



remarkably small; and I thence inferred that the en-ir 

 would have, and indeed had, increased in the gall''." 



Rosel made a similar observation on the red eg-gs 

 of a water-mite (Hydrachiia abstergens) ; and he was 

 induced to suppose (justly, as we think) that, as they 

 are deposited upon the bodies of water-scorpions 

 {Nepid(e, Leach), they derive their means of in- 

 crease from themf. De Geer remarked that the 

 water-scorpions, when much infested with them, be- 

 came gradually weakened as the eggs increased in 

 size J. 



Huber the younger, in the course of his experi- 

 ments, discovered that the eggs of ants, from being 

 small and opaque, became comparatively large and 

 transparent. "To be convinced of the truth of this," 

 he says, "I viewed those eggs with the microscope. 

 I also measured them, and having separated them 

 l>om each other, found the longest to be those only 

 in which the grubs were hatched in my presence. 

 If I removed them from the workers, before they 

 attained their full length and transparency, they 

 dried up, and the grubs never quitted them." 

 Huber is inclined to attribute this remarkable in- 

 crease and transparency to the humidity imparted to 

 them by the vvorking ants who so assiduously pass 

 them through their mouths. "For," he adds, "if they 

 be not surrounded with a liquid, or preserved from the 

 influence of the external air, their pellicle, moistened 

 every instant by the workers, may preserve a certain 

 degree of suppleness and expansibility, according 

 to the development of the included grub §.'' 



The most minute observations, however, of this 

 khid, which have hitherto been pubhshed, were made 



* Reaumur, Mem. vol. iil. p. 479. 



tRtisel, Insecten. vol. iii. p. 152, 



% Dc Geer, Mem. des Insectes, vol. vii. p. 145. 



§M. P. Huber on Ants, p. 72. 



