CH. XVIII.] PARASITICAL INSECTS, ETC. 265 



head. Being there fixed, the plant would increase 

 with the enlargement of the insect, and, drawing 

 nourishment from its body, would continue to 

 grow, even after it had attained its last and perfect 

 state, until the plant has destroyed the life of the 

 insect. The opinion now laid before the reader is 

 more likely to be the truth. As insects often pass 

 no small portion of their life in a state of torpidity, 

 in which they remain chiefly without motion, it will 

 not seem wonderful, should any partial moisture 

 accidentally accumulate upon them, that it affords 

 a seed-plot for certain minute fungi to come up and 

 grow in. 



Some insects have been found with portions of 

 flowers attached to various parts of their bodies. 

 Thus the stamina have been detected on bees, and 

 even on coleopterous insects. Christian, a German 

 writer, has described some very singular appear- 

 ances which he observed on the first joint of the 

 four posterior tarsi of Hylocopa latipes. These were 

 battledoor-shaped laminae, fixed in pairs by means 

 of a footstalk to the joint, and are sometimes very 

 numerous. He conjectures that the insect uses 

 them for the purpose of collecting the pollen. But 

 Messrs. Kirby and Spence have remarked, that some 

 specimens do not possess this apparatus. They 

 therefore imagine that these appendages are the 

 anthers of flowers, and are spoils which the bees in 

 question have filched from the blossoms of some 

 plants. 



VOL. II. Z 



