240 INSECT MISCELLANIES. 



them fertile, as to any other animal. It is very sin- 

 gular, however, that the female after pairing is not 

 viviparous, that is, does not produce living young, 

 but eggs; or, as M. Bonnet was inclined to think, a 

 species of pupae like eggs * : whereas the insects 

 which are thence disclosed produce living young 

 without pairing ; and more wonderful still, all these 

 broods are uniformly females, no males being pro- 

 duced till the pairing season, which is towards the 

 close of summer or autumn. 



Amongst all these singularities relating to aphides, 

 there is another which merits further investigation 

 than it has yet received, namely, that some indivi- 

 duals are furnished with wings, while others are not. 

 Analogy led to the supposition that the wingless 

 ones are females, and the winged ones males, as 

 occurs among the glow-worms (Lampyridce), the 

 cochineal insects (Coccidce), and some moths. Ob- 

 servation, however, disproved this, it having been 

 ascertained by Lyonnet and De Geer, that there are 

 females as well as males, both winged and not 

 winged t. 



No other family of insects, so far as we are aware, 

 exhibits anything similar to the aphides in these 

 anomalies, and we must therefore guard our young 

 readers against the following error in a popular 

 work on natural history. " However similar," says 

 Goldsmith, " insects of the gnat-kind are in their 

 appearance, yet they differ widely from each other 

 in the manner in which they are brought forth, for 

 some are oviparous, and produced from eggs, 

 some are viviparous, and come forth in their most 

 perfect form ; some are of neither sex, yet still pro- 

 duce young without any pairing whatsoever. This 

 is one of the strangest discoveries in natural history. 



* See Insect Transformations, page 113. 

 t De Geer, Mem. iii. 21. 



