TOO Rev. Mr. KlRBv'i Cant'imat'wn of the 



On the feventh of June, upon opening a floret, I difcovered a fmall 

 patch of eggs; they were oblong (/'), tranfparent, and of a pale buff 

 colour. I afterwards found feveral of thefc little patches, containing 

 from a fingle egg only, to more than twenty. On the feventeenth 

 I found, for the firfl: time, a larva newly hatched : it adhered to the 

 lower end of one of the anthers (/■), and was perfe6Uy tranfparent 

 and colourlefs ; from which circumftance I conjefture, that it had 

 taken no food. I afterwards dctetSed two more in a fimilar fitu- 

 ation, one of which had become ftraw-coloured from the contrary 

 caufe. In another floret, upon the fame day, I found many with 

 their heads immerfed in the woolly fummit of the germen : fome. 

 were in the interior valvule of the corolla ; others appeared to be 

 bufy upon the plumofe ftigmata, upon which I did not obferve that 

 any pollen had been difcharged from the anthers. Upon the twenty- 

 fecond I obferved that the iarvas were ufually in the fituation re- 

 prefented in the accurate drawing engraved in the third volume of 

 the Linnean Society's Tranfaftions (/). All circumflances confidered,. 

 it fecms to me moft probable, that thefe animals do not feed upon the 

 pollen before it is difcharged from theanthers(OT);yetonewouldthink. 

 that in this cafe fufhcient muft efcape them to fertilize the germen. 

 How they prevent this I can but conjefture: as their heads are often 

 immerfed in the ftigmata, and in the down obfervable upon the top 

 of the germen, it is pofTible they may occafion an obftrudion in 

 thofc fine du£^s through which the fertilizing principle paflTes down 

 into the grain; or they may confume that fpermatic moifture upon 

 the ftigma, without the aid of which the pollen cannot perform its 

 ofRce. On the twenty-ninth the parent Tipulce had all difappeared, 

 and foon after this period my inveftigations were flopped by illnefs; 



(i) Tab. iv. fig. I. d. IJi) Fig. 2. e. {/)Tab. xxii. fig. ic. 



(ot) Except perhaps wlien they are newly hatched. 



but 



