The Glow- Worm and Other Beetles 



bius, the object of so many mistakes to the 

 untrained observer. The little Lace-winged 

 Fly with the gold eggs sets up on a leaf a 

 group of long, tiny columns as fine as a 

 spider's thread, each bearing an egg as a 

 capital. The whole resembles pretty closely 

 a tuft of some long-stemmed mildew. Re- 

 member also the Eumenes' hanging egg, 1 

 which swings at the end of a thread, thus 

 protecting the grub when it takes its first 

 mouthfuls of the heap of dangerous game. 

 The Taxicorn Clythra provides us with a 

 third example of eggs fitted with suspension- 

 threads, but so far nothing has given me an 

 inkling of the function or the use of this 

 string. Though the mother's intentions es- 

 cape me, I can at least describe her work in 

 some detail. 



The eggs are smooth, coffee-coloured and 

 shaped like a thimble. If you hold them to 

 the light, you see in the thickness of their 

 skin five circular zones, darker than the rest 

 and producing almost the same effect as the 

 hoops of a barrel. The end attached to the 

 suspension-thread is slightly conical; the 

 other is lopped off abruptly and the section is 

 hollowed into a circular mouth. A good lens 

 shows us inside this, a little below the rim, a 



1 Cf. The Mason-wasps: chap. i. — Translator's Note. 

 464 



