HEM1PTERA, 99 



coins, we were able to carry away with us about a bushel of the hautle, 



a portion of which, at our request, Mme. B was kind enough to 



prepare for us. 



" They dress these in different ways, but generally make a sort of 

 cake, which is served up with a sauce, to which the Mexicans give a 

 zest, as they do indeed to all their dishes, by adding to it chilie, 

 which is composed of green pimento crushed. This is how the 

 natives proceed when they are fishing for hautle: they form with 

 reeds bent together a sort of fasces, which they place vertically in the 

 lake at some distance from the bank, and as these are bound together 

 by one of the reeds, the ends of which are so arranged as to form an 

 indicating buoy, it is easy to draw them out at will. Twelve to fifteen 

 days suffice for each reed in these fasces to be entirely covered with 

 eggs, which they thus fish up by millions. The former are then left 

 to dry in the sun, on a cloth, for an hour or more ; the grains are then 

 easily detached. After this operation, they are replaced in the water 

 for the next hautle harvest." 



M. Virlet had attributed to flies the eggs of which we have been 

 speaking. But in 1851 M. Gue'rin-Meneville having received, 

 transmitted to him by M. Ghiliani, eggs of which hautle is made, and 

 some of the insects said to produce them, stated that the latter 

 belonged to two different species. The one had been known a long 

 time since under the name of Corixa mercenaria; M. Guerin- 

 Meneville called the other Corixa femorata. 



The same entomologist discovered, among the eggs of these two 

 species, other eggs of a more considerable size, and which he attri- 

 buted to a new species of the genus Notonecta, about which we are 

 now going to say a few words. 



The Notonecta glaiica, which Geoffroy calls the Large Bug with 

 Oars (" Grande punaise a avirons "), is very common in ditches, 

 reservoirs, and stagnant waters. Its body is oblong, narrow, con- 

 tracted posteriorly, convex above, flat below, having, at its sides and 

 its extremities, hairs which, when spread out, support the animal on 

 the water. Its head is large and of a slightly greenish grey, and has 

 on each of its sides a very large eye of a pale brown colour. Its 

 thorax is greyish, the hemelytra of a greenish grey, the membranous 

 wings white. Of its legs, the front four are short ; but the hind legs, 

 almost twice as long, are furnished with long hairs, and resemble 

 oars. It is with the aid of these that the animal moves through the 

 water ; and it does so in a singular manner, placing itself on its back, 

 and generally in an inclined position, as in Fig. 77. 



When this insect, on the contrary, drags itself along on the mud, 



H 2 



