78 STATES OF INSECTS. (gg. 
or leaf as if lifeless, now augments prodigiously, and the 
whole body, distended with the thousands of eggs which 
it includes to the bigness of a large pea, without any 
vestige of head or limb, resembles a vegetable excres- 
cence or gall-apple rather than an insect. If you re- 
move one of them, you will perceive that the under part 
of its abdomen is flat and closely applied to the surface 
of the branch on which it rests, only a thin layer of a 
sort of cotton being interposed between them. In lay- 
ing her eggs the female Coccus does not, like most insects, 
protrude them beyond her body into day-light; but as 
soon as the first egg has passed the orifice of her oviduct, 
she pushes it between her belly and the cottony stratum 
just mentioned, and the succeeding eggs are deposited 
in the same manner until the whole are excluded. You 
will ask how there can be found space between the in- 
sect’s belly and the cotton, to which at first-it was close- 
ly applied, for so large a mass of eggs? ‘To comprehend 
this, you must consider that nearly the whole contents of 
its abdomen were eggs; that in proportion as these are 
extruded a void space is left, which allows the skin of 
the under side of the body to be pushed upwards, or 
towards that of the back, affording room between it and 
the cottony web for their convenient stowage. If you 
examine the insect after its eggs are all laid, you will find 
that they have merely changed their situation; instead 
of being on the upper side of the skin forming the belly, 
and within the body, they now are placed between it 
(now become concave and nearly touching the back) and 
the layer of cotton. As soon as the female Coccus has 
finished her singular operation she dies; but her body, 
retaining its shape, remains glued upon the eggs, to 
