STATES OF INSECTS. ( Ege.) 95 
oval, and each of them attached toa filiform pedicle not 
thicker than a hair, and seven or eight times as long as 
the egg. By this pedicle (which is supposed to be formed 
by a glutinous matter attached to one end, which the 
female draws out by abstracting her ovipositor with the 
egg partly init from the leaf, to which she has previously 
applied it, to a proper length, when the gluten becoming 
sufficiently solid she wholly quits the egg,) the eggs are 
planted in groups of ten or twelve on the surface of leaves 
and twigs, from which they project like so many small 
fungi, to some of which they have a remarkable resem- 
blance. When the included larva has made its way out 
of them by forcing open the top, they look like little vases, 
and were actually once figured by a Naturalist, as we 
learnfrom Reaumur, as singular parasitic flowers growing 
upon the leaves of the elder, for the origin of which he 
was extremely puzzled to account. Eggs similarly 
furnished with a pedicle are also laid by other insects; 
but as most of these have been before alluded to, it is 
not necessary to describe them here>. ‘The cause of 
these differences of form is for the most part concealed 
from us: in many instances it may perhaps be referred 
to that will to vary forms, and so to glorify his wisdom‘ 
and power, independently of other considerations, which, 
as Dr. Paley has well remarked ‘4, seems often to have 
guided the Great Author of Nature. But in some cases 
* Reaum. iii. 3886—, ¢. xxxii. f. 1. ¢. xxxiii. fi 5. 
>T allude to Ophion luteum F. (Ichneumon L.) Vol. i. Ed. 3. p. 
269. figured Prare XX. Fic. 22; and the Hydrachne or Trombidia. 
See above, and De Geer vii. 145. 
© From this circumstance called roauzorsros coQiee by the Apostle, 
Ephes. iii. 10, 4 Nat. Theol. 11th Ed. 375. 
