350 INSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



erudite and pleasing a manner. I did not then imagine that 

 it would ever be my lot to speak upon a subject whicb had 

 been treated with so much care and elegance ; but since I 

 have enjoyed more favourable opportunities than M. Vallis- 

 nieri, it was not difficult for me to investigate some of the 

 circumstances better, and to consider them under a diiferent 

 point of view. It is not, indeed, very wonderful to discover 

 something new in an object, though it has been already 

 carefull}^ inspected with very good eyes, when we sit down 

 to examine it more narrowly, and in a more favourable 

 position ; while it sometimes happens, also, that most indif- 

 ferent observers have detected what had been previously 

 unnoticed by the most skilful interpreters of nature."* 



From the observations made b}^ Reaumur, he concluded 

 that the mother-fly, above described, deposits her eggs in 

 the flesh of the larger animals, for which purpose she is 

 furnished with an ovipositor of singular mechanism. We 

 have seen that the ovipositors of the gall-flies ( Cynips^ are 

 rolled up within the body of the insect somewhat like the 

 spring of a watch, so that they can be thrust out to more 

 than double their apparent length. To effect the same pur- 

 pose, the ovipositor of the ox-fly lengthens, by a series of 

 sliding tubes, precisely like an opera-glass. There are four 

 of these tubes, as may be seen by pressing the belly of the 

 fly till they come into view. Like other ovipositors of this 

 sort, they are composed of a horny substance ; but the ter- 

 minal piece is very different indeed from the same part in 

 the gall-flies, the tree-hoppers {Cicadce), and the iclineu- 

 mons, being composed of five points, three of which are 

 longer than the other two, and at first sight not unlike a 

 fleur-de-lis, though, upon narrower inspection, they may be 

 discovered to terminate in curved points, somewhat like 

 the claw of a cat. The two shorter pieces are also pointed, 

 but not curved ; and by the union of the five, a tube is com- 

 posed for the passage of the eggs. 



It would be necessary, Reaumur confesses, to see the fly 

 employ this instrument to understand in what manner it 



* Re'aumm-, Mem. iv. 505. 



