STATES OF INSECTS. (Lg¢.) 63 
proved by the observations of Leeuwenhoek, who found 
eggs in the abdomen of a female scorpion*; and of 
Reaumur, with regard to the flesh-fly (Sarcophaga car- 
naria) and other viviparous flies as they have been called». 
A similar mode of production takes place in vipers and 
some other reptiles, which have hence been denominated 
ovo-viviparous, to distinguish them from the true vivi- 
parous animals—the class Mammalia. By far the larger 
portion of insects is oviparous in the ordinary acceptation 
of the term. The ovo-viviparous tribes at present known 
are scorpions; the flesh-fly and several other flies; a 
minute gnat belonging to Latreille’s family of Tipularia®; 
some species of Coccus ; some bugs (Geocorise Latr.) 4; 
and most Aphides, which last also exhibit the singular 
fact of individuals of the same species being some ovi- 
parous and others ovo-viviparous, the former being longer 
in proportion than the latter.—Bonnet, however, is of 
opinion that the eggs of the first are not perfect eggs, 
but a kind of cocoon, which defends the larva, already 
formed in some degree, from the cold of winter °. 
When excluded from the body of the mother, or from 
the egg, as has been before observed, some insects appear 
nearly in the form of their parents, which, with a very 
» * Select Works by Hoole, i. 132. The fact is confirmed by M. L. 
Dufour, who, having opened the abdomen of a female scorpion, 
found in the midst of some eggs nearly mature a little scorpion a 
quarter of an inch long; it lay without motion, with its tail folded 
under the body. N. Dict. d Hist. Nat. xxx. 426. 
> Reaum. iv. 425—. © Ibid, 428—. ¢, xxix. f. 10, 11. 
4 Busch, a German author, affirms that many bugs are subject to 
this law. Schneid, i. 206. 
© Quoted in Huber Fourmis, 208. Some reptiles also are at one 
time oviparous, and at another ovo-viviparous, N. Dict. d Hist. 
Nat. xii. 568, 
