104 STATES OF INSECTS. (Lgg.) 
Trichoda Neustria, &c.), it is often several hours in ac- 
complishing*. In many instances, however, the larva 
is spared this trouble, one end of the egg being furnish- 
ed with a little lid or trap-door, which it has but to force 
up, and it can then emerge at pleasure: such lids are to 
be found in the eggs of several butterflies and moths, as 
Hipparchia Mera, Saturnia Pyri, &c. and the common 
louse’. In those exquisitely elegant eggs, before de- 
scribed, of some kind of bird-louse (Nirmus) found ad- 
hering to the base of the neck feathers of the golden 
pheasant‘, there is a lid or cap of this kind of a hemi- 
spherical form terminating in a tortuous style. ‘Those 
of a species of bug (Pentatoma Latr.), found by our 
friend the Rev. R. Sheppard, besides a convex lid are 
furnished with a very curious machine, as it should seem, 
for throwing it off. This machine is dark brown, of a 
corneous substance, and of the shape of a cross-bow4, 
the bow part being attached to the lid or pushing against 
it, and the handle, by means of a membrane, to the up- 
per end of the side of the egg. 
When the included animal has made its way out of 
the egg, it enters upon a new state of existence, that of 
Larva, to which I shall direct your attention in the fol- 
lowing letter. 
I am, &c. 
* Reaum. 11. 167. 
» Brahm. 249. . Rosel. iv. 130. Swamm. Bibl. Nat. t. i. f. 2. 
© By Mr. White, jun. cordwainer at Ipswich. 
" Prate XX. Fic. 16. a. 
