96 STATES OF INSECTS. (fgg.) 
the end to be answered is sufficiently evident. The long 
footstalks of the eggs of the Chrysopa just mentioned, 
there can be little doubt, are meant to place them out of 
the reach of the hosts of predaceous insects which roam 
around them, from whose jaws, thus elevated on their 
slender shaft, they are as safe as the eggs of the tailor 
bird in its twig-suspended nest from the attack of snakes. 
Reaumur has described the eggs of a kind of fly, com- 
mon upon the excrements of the horse and other animals 
(Scatophaga stercoraria), or one related to it, that re- 
quires to be immersed in the dung to which it is com- 
mitted, on which the future grubs are to feed. He found 
that if not thus surrounded with moisture, they infallibly 
shrivelled up and came to nothing; but it is equally ne- 
cessary that they should not be wholly covered: if they 
were, the young larva would be suffocated at its first exit 
from the egg. In what way is this nice point secured ? 
In this manner. Each egg is provided at its upper end, 
at which the animal when hatched comes out, with two 
diverging horns*; these prevent it from being stuck into 
the excrement, in which the female deposits the eggs 
one by one, more than three-fourths of its length: and 
when examined they resemble not badly, as Reaumur 
remarks (except that their colour is white), a parcel of 
cloves stuck into a pudding, as they are neatly inserted 
at due distances in the disgusting mass’. The French 
Naturalists found these eggs in swine’s dung; I have 
observed them in cow-dung. Latreille thinks that the 
bristles above described attached to the eggs of Nepa and 
2 Pirate XX. Fic. 19. a a. 
> Reaum. iv. 376—. ¢. xxvii. f. 9, 10. 
