250 MODERN CLASSIFICATION OF INSECTS. 



in oxygen or hydrogen gas. It has also been ascertained that the 

 animal is able to live a long time in vacuo. 



The female glowworm deposits her eggs shortly after coupling, being 

 thus occupied a day or two ; these eggs are of a large size, and of a 

 yellowish colour, and are placed in the earth, or upon moss and plants, 

 to which they are affixed by means of a viscid fluid. The larva 

 i^ficj' 26. 7.) is long, narrow, flattened, and composed of twelve broad 

 transverse segments (exclusive of the head), to each of the first three 

 of which a pair of short legs are attached ; the anterior, (not the 

 centre thoracic segment, as stated by Stephens,) is semicircular, and 

 gradually narrowed in front. This segment, which represents the 

 hood-like prothorax of the perfect insect, is similarly employed as a 

 shield to the head, which is entirely retractile within the thoracic 

 cavity, at the will of the animal (^ff. 26. 8. the tips only of the 

 mandibles being exposed.) The last abdominal segment is the 

 narrowest, and its posterior angles are slightly produced. This 

 larva is of an obscure black colour, with a pale spot at the hinder 

 angles of each segment. The antenna?, palpi, and legs are short; 

 the latter being strong, and terminated by a small claw. The 

 mandibles are strong, acute, and curved. It may often be ob- 

 served crawling slowly about footpaths, near hedges, and when dis- 

 turbed it withdraws its head, and becomes immovable. It feeds (as 

 does also the perfect insect) upon small molluscous animals, especially 

 those of the genus Zonites, and not upon leaves or grass, as Latreille 

 and others have generally supposed. De Geer, indeed, was led to 

 believe, from the structure of its mandibles, that it was carnivorous; 

 but it is only recently that his supposition has been proved to be cor- 

 rect. It is not difficult to rear this larva ; but it is necessary to pro- 

 vide it, from time to time, with moistened earth and fresh food. An 

 anonymous author* (Bulletin Soc. Phil. Feb. 1826) has published an 

 account of the habits of this larva; in which it is stated that they will 

 devour snails even in a putrefying state ; and a peculiar apparatus is 

 described, for the first time, consisting of a kind of " houppe ner- 

 veuse," composed of seven or eight white radii, capable of being pro- 

 truded from the anal aperture, beneath the last abdominal segment, 

 and which is employed, not only as a point of support, assisting in lo- 



* This memoir is also given in the Annales des Sciences Naturelles, vol. vii, p. 353.; 

 and k attributed to M. Maille. (Percheron, Bibl. Ent. i. 267.) 



