RAVAGES OF TUE ' NIGaER.' 305 



blight. The egg is of an oblong form and pale colour, avA i"? 

 so firmly glued to the cuticle of the leaf that I have never 

 been able to get one off without breaking it ; but when the egg 

 is removed it leaves, or rather discloses, a wound in the cuticle 

 of the leaf, and I have little doubt that this wound is made 

 by the parent fly, in order that the egg itself may receive 

 nourishment from the juices of the plant. This is perhaps 

 a little hypothetical, but there is a fact which seems to re- 

 'quire such an explanation, for the egg positively grows, while 

 still to all appearance an egg. At the end of four days its 

 bulk is nearly doubled, and by the ninth day, when the grub 

 comes out, it is actually three times as large as when 

 deposited. 



' Directly the young Nigger is let out of the egg-shell, he 

 begins eating away in right earnest. The first onslaught is 

 generally made as near as possible to the spot where he was 

 bora, but after a day or two the edges of the leaf seem to be 

 most favoured by his attentions, and here the whole family may 

 be seen working with a will, their heads at the work of demolition, 

 and their tails cocked up in the air. In an incredibly short 

 space of time the green of the leaf is gone, and nothing is 

 visible but the naked skeletons of veins, which the Niggers do 

 not choose to consume. The colour of the grub is a dull lead 

 colour, with a rather rough or wrinkly skin, but without hairs ; 

 and down each side, from stem to stern, is a paler line. Its 

 length, when full grown, is between half and three-quarters of 

 an inch. It has no less than twenty legs, six of which are placed 

 in three pairs, very near the head. These six are long, hard, 

 horny, and sharp-pointed, and with them the grub holds fast 

 the edge of the leaf while he goes on devouring it ; the other 

 lourteen legs are arranged in seven pairs along the body, and 

 are soft and fleshy without any horny substance, and quite 

 without sharp points. These legs are used when the grub is 

 crawling; but while he is eating, and the tail, indeed the 

 greater part of the body, is, as I have already said, cocked up 

 in the air, they are quite unemployed. Sometimes, and es- 

 *pecially when offended or in danger, the Nigger-grub coils him- 

 self up in a ring, holding the leaf very slightly by the first 

 pair of legs, that pair next the head, and wlien touched in this 

 state, falls directly to the ground, and there lies as thougij 



X 



