o4 STATES OF INSECTS. (Ege.) 
culiar, that we can scarcely credit their claim to the name 
of eggs. Thus the eggs of the gnat are oblong and nar- 
row, or nearly cylindrical, having at the top a cylindri- 
cal knob*, so as to give them the precise form of the 
round-bottomed phial sometimes used by chemists : those 
of the common water-scorpion (Nepa cinerea) are oblong, 
and at the upper end are surrounded by a sort of coronet, 
consisting of seven slender rays or bristles of the length 
of the egg °, so as to resemble somewhat the seeds of 
Carduus benedictus (Cnicus acarna “) of the old botanists. 
One would think this spinous circlet a very awkward 
appendage to bodies which are to be gradually extruded 
through the fine membranous ovaries and oviduct which 
inclose them: but they are so admirably packed, the un- 
armed end of each egg fitting closely into the space in- 
closed by the spines of the one next below it, or, rather, 
the spines which are moveable, embracing it closely, that 
not only is no room lost, but the ovaries are perfectly 
secure from injury. The eggs of another species of this 
tribe (Ranatra linearis) have only two of these spines or 
bristles—they are inserted in the stem of a water-rush 
(Scirpus) or other aquatic plant, so as to be quite con- 
cealed, and are only to be detected by the two bristles 
which stand out from it’. The eggs of the beautiful 
lace-winged flies, those golden-eyed insects so serviceable 
in destroying the plant-lice (Aphides*), are still more sin- 
gular. Those of Chrysopa Perla, one of the tribe, are 
2 PratE XX. Fic. 18. 
> PratE XX. Fic. 23. Swamm. Bibl. Nat. t. iii. f. 7, 8. Ina 
specimen I opened of this insect the bristles converged so as to form 
a kind of tail to the egg. © Darwin Phytolog. 512. 
* Geoffr. Ins. Par. i. 480. t. x. f. 1. 6. ¢. 
© See above, Vor. I. p. 264. 
