FAIRY FLIES 1465 



Another egg is ascended, bored, and stored with an 

 egg and so on until the whole batch of twenty has 

 been struck, and all chance of any psocid emerging 

 utterly ruined. I kept the first batch of eggs which 

 I had seen struck in October until the following 

 year, when, as the warm days of April arrived, I' 

 carefully examined them, until one eventful day I 

 observed one of the eggs had a tiny hole in it. On 

 placing it under the microscope I saw a pair of 

 mandibles busily at work nibbling away the egg- 

 shell, until at last the hole was large enough to ad- 

 mit of the head being thrust through. After many 

 efforts the antennae were freed, followed by the first 

 pair of legs; then, with this additional leverage at 

 command, the thorax was lifted out, the second pair 

 of legs and part of the wings following, and after 

 much apparently painful effort the third and last 

 pair of legs was withdrawn, enabling the fairy to 

 walk out, and to free those most exquisitely deli- 

 cate wings without a hitch. Now, taking a firm grip 

 on the empty eggshell, the fairy went through her 

 toilet. Not a hair or spine escaped attention each 

 and every part of this microscopic marvel received 

 the utmost attention; every hair forming the lovely 

 marginal fringe was brushed out and arranged in 

 exact order. The wings were raised several times to 

 try them, and then away this atom of perfection flew. 

 Since my first seeing the ovipositor of a fairy fly I 

 have dissected many struck eggs, and in less than a 

 minute had the germ (laid by the fairy fly) under 

 my microscope, and watched it grow, and the cells 

 divide again and again in such a marvelous manner 



