28 DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS OF VICTORIA : 



contractions and expansions of the body, which, in 

 many cases, becomes ahnost transparent. The females 

 now begin to lay regularly and closely in a quadruple 

 row (see Fig. XXIII. ), placed diagonally to the direction 

 of the bore. The number laid by each female varying 

 from 50 to 80, or more, and these are compacted into a 

 tube about an inch long, and appear to be protected from 

 the heat by a white frothy secretion. About six hours 

 are occupied in this operation, during which time the 

 female cannot readily escape, and frequently succumbs to 

 the attacks of ants, &c., the eggs, whilst in the female, 

 are yellow, with a bright greenish tinge ; when deposited 

 they assume a dirty flesh colour, and in a few days be- 

 come a dirty yellow. After the eggs are deposited they 

 expand to sometimes twice their size, whilst the shells 

 gradually harden. My observations suggest the proba- 

 bility that there are two broods in a year. The eggs 

 deposited about October or November will, on account of 

 the summer heat, be hatched within a month : whilst 

 those deposited in March will hybernate during the winter 

 and be hatched about September. The favorite places 

 for depositing the eggs are gentle slopes, free, or almost 

 so, from vegetation ; also cattle and sheep tracts, road- 

 ways, plains, &c., and I noticed in one place that they had 

 deposited in a recenth' planted vineyard, probably because 

 the surrounding country was covered with veoetation. 

 These breedino' o-rounds are readilv recomiisable, for the 

 ground is broken into small clumps of earth, | to nearly 

 ^ an inch in diameter, which often lie about indiscrimi- 

 nately as if the land had been scarified by a pronged hoe. 

 The nests are so close too-ether that there are about 150 



o 



to 200 to the square foot, and the females when laying 

 frequently overlap each other. The young come out of 

 these nests in a mass, and remove themselves out of the 

 eggs by means of their hind legs. They are at first of a 

 very pale flesh colour, with markings about the legs and 

 body, at first very faint, but which in less than 48 hours, 

 become ver}^ distinct, whilst the ground colour changes 



