Insect Architecture. 



acts, though he is disposed to consider it fit for boring 

 through the hides of cattle. " Whenever I have succeeded," 

 he adds, " in seeing these insects at work, they have usually 

 shown that they proceeded quite differently from what I had 



Ovipositor of the Breeze-fly, greatly magnified, with a claw and part of the tube, 

 disiii,ct. 



imagined ; but unfortunately I have never been able to see 

 one of them pierce the hide of a cow under my eyes."* 



Mr. Bracey Clark, taking another view of the matter, is 

 decidedly of opinion that the fly does not pierce the skin of 

 cattle with its ovipositor at all, but merely glues its eggs to 

 the hairs, while the grubs, when hatched, eat their way under 

 the skin. If 'this be the fact, as is not improbable, the three 

 curved pieces of the ovipositor, instead of acting, as Eeaumur 

 imagined, like a centre-bit, will only serve to prevent the 

 eggs from falling till they are firmly glued to the hair, the 

 opening formed by the two shorter points permitting this to 

 be effected. This account of the matter is rendered more 

 plausible, from Eeaumur's statement that the deposition of 

 * .Mem. iv. 538. 



