368 MOTIONS OF INSECTS. 



which it inhumes — the caterpillar-wasp. It digs its bur- 

 rows by scratching with its fore legs like a dog or a rab- 

 bit, dispersing with its hind ones, which are particularly 

 constructed for that purpose, the sand so collected". 



Since most of these burrows are designed for the re- 

 ception of the eggs of the burrowers, I shall next de- 

 scribe to you the manner in which one of the long- 

 legged gnats, or crane-flies {Tipula variegata^ L.) — a 

 proceeding to which I was myself a witness — oviposits. 

 Choosing a south bank bare of grass, she stood with her 

 legs stretched out on each side, and kept turning her- 

 self half round backwards and forwards alternately. 

 Thus the ovipositor, which terminates her long cylin- 

 drical pointed abdomen, made its way into the hard 

 soil, and deposited her eggs in a secure situation. All, 

 however, were not committed to the same burrow ; for 

 she every now and then shifted her station, but not 

 more than an inch from AvJiere she bored last. While 

 she was thus engaged, I observed her male companion 

 suspended by one of his legs on a twig, not far from 

 her. The common turf-boring crane-fly ( T. olcracea, L.) 

 when engaged in laying eggs, moves over the grass 

 with her body in a vertical position, by the help — her 

 four anterior legs being in the air — of her two posterior 

 ones, and the end of her abdomen, which performs the 

 office of another. Whether in boring, like T. variegata, 

 she turns half round and back, does not appear from 

 Reaumur's account''. 



I now come to motions whose object seems to be 

 sport and amusement rather than locomotion. They 



' Linn. Trans, iv. 200—. * v. 20—. 



