82 STATES OF INSECTS. (Lg¢.) 
This illustrious Entomologist was more successful in 
discovering the mode in which another insect, the com- 
mon gvat, whose group of eggs is, in some respects, as 
extraordinary as that last described, performs its opera- 
tions. The eggs of this insect, of a long phial-like form, 
are glued together, side by side, to the number of from 
250 to 300, into an oblong mass, pointed and more 
elevated at each end, so as considerably to resemble a 
little boat in shape. You must not here suppose that I 
use the term boat by way of illustration merely ; for it 
has all the essential properties of a boat. In shape it 
pretty accurately resembles a London wherry, being 
sharp and higher, to use a nautical phrase, fore and aft; 
convex below and concave above; floating, moreover, 
constantly on the keel or convex part. But this is not 
all. Itis besides a zfe-boat, more buoyant than even 
Mr. Greathead’s: the most violent agitation of the water 
cannot sink it; and what is more extraordinary, and a 
property still a desideratum in our life-boats, though 
hollow it never becomes filled with water, even though 
exposed to the torrents that often accompany a thunder- 
storm. To put this to the test, I yesterday (July 25, 1811) 
placed half a dozen of these boats upon the surface of a 
tumbler half full of water; I then poured upon them a 
stream of that element from the mouth of a quart bottle 
held a foot above them. Yet after this treatment, which 
was so rough as actually to project one out of the glass, 
I found them floating as before upon their bottoms, and 
not a drop of water within their cavity. 
This boat, which floats upon the surface of the water 
until the larvae are disclosed, is placed there by the fe- 
male gnat. But how? Her eggs, as in other insects, 
