134 London Insects. 



there has been a little rain to soften the upper soil, 

 to be seen in thousands, ladies and gentlemen, and 

 are in many ways satisfactory insects. 



To begin with, they are of a reasonable size, suffi- 

 ciently large to show, without turning one's eyes 

 inside out without any very powerful lens, the curious 

 rudimentary wings, like two sticks with a knob at the 

 end of each, already referred to as a characteristic 

 of the whole order of "two wings." The cutting 

 of the sections is very clear, as is the plated cuirass 

 on the back overlapping the breast-plate, both divided 

 very distinctly into segments which need no glass to 

 count. 



They have no smell, which is a consideration, and 

 in spite of the alarming varnished spike which the 

 female carries conspicuously at her tail, they have 

 no sting. 



Towards evening there is no difficulty in rinding 

 out the use of the terrible-looking instrument. 



It is an egg-placer, which can be opened and shut 

 at will, like a heron's beak. The portly-looking 

 mothers-to-be may then be seen by dozens waddling 

 along the grass, or lifting themselves clumsily for a 

 yard or two at a time with flight very different from 

 the maiden dance of the morning. When they come 

 to a suitable place, usually where the grass is thin 

 and a little patch of bare earth is just visible between 

 the blades, they set themselves on end, and either 

 pirouette round and round for a few moments, or 

 make crowbars of themselves, and thump till the 

 spike is far enough into the ground to satisfy them 

 that the cargo of eggs to be slipped through it will 

 be safe. If a little bit of dirt finds its way between 

 the mandibles of the tail-beak of a Daddy or, to 

 be more correct, Mammy Longlegs the males end 



