68 STATES OF INSECTS. (Ligg.) 
element, that receives them, but the animal does not ap- 
pear to know the difference between a solid and a liquid, 
and seems only anxious how to free herself from a bur- 
then that oppresses her; all has been contrived that an 
insect so short-lived may finish her different operations 
with the utmost celerity: the term of her existence would 
not have admitted the leisurely extrusion of such a num- 
ber of eggs in succession*. Some Trichoptera, or May- 
flies, as Phryganea grandis L., exclude their eggs in a 
double packet, enveloped in a mass of jelly, (a circum- 
stance often attending the eggs that produce aquatic 
larvee,) upon the leaves of willows®. A similar double 
packet in the year 1810 I observed appended to the anus 
of a black species with long antennze, Leptocerus atratus°. 
Upon taking several of the females I was surprised to 
find in the above situation a seemingly fleshy substance 
of adirty yellow. At first, from its annular appearance, 
I conceived it to be some parasitic larva, but was not a 
little surprised upon pulling it away that it was full of 
globular transparent dusky eggs: it was about two lines 
and a quarter in length and nearly one in breadth. Being 
bent double it was attached to the animal by the inter- 
mediate angle, and when unfolded was constricted in the 
middle*. Each half, which was roundish, had about 
ten sharp transverse ridges, the interstices of which ap- 
peared as if crenated, an appearance produced by the 
eggs which it contained. Upon more than gentle pres- 
* The vesicles, which Reaumur thinks may be pulmonary vesicles, 
as well as assisting in the extrusion of the masses of eggs, he has 
figured ¢, xiv. f. 10. ww. 
> De Geer ii. 534. ¢. xiii. f. 13. 
© Coquebert Idustr. Ic. t. i. f. A. B. 
4 Pirate XX. Fie. 20. 
