Care of the Young in the Animal Kingdom. 145 



acorns instead of pumpkins, or a hen for laying eggs 

 instead of begetting live chicks. Ephemeras flit 

 about over stagnant pools and drop their clusters of 

 eggs into the water; pearl-flies carefully attach their 

 eggs to a flimsy peduncle consisting of a sap hardened 

 by exposure to the air; ichneumon-flies deposit their 

 eggs in the body of a caterpillar by means of their 

 ovipositor; gall-flies introduce theirs under the rib of 

 an oak leaf, from which later on the gall-nut is to 

 grow, serving both as dwelling and as provision store 

 of the young larva; the blue-bottles place their eggs 

 on putrefying flesh, whereas a certain species of wasps 

 (Pompilus viaticus) glue theirs to the bodies of 

 spiders which they paralyze by skilful thrusts of their 

 sting without killing them, so as to enable the growing 

 larvae to feed upon live flesh; the common cabbage- 

 butterfly deposits her eggs on cabbages, the hawk- 

 moth on poisonous spurges, the large clavicorn water- 

 beetle (Hydrophilus pic ens} weaves for its eggs an 

 ingenious boat with a little streamer on top to float 

 about on the surface of the water, whilst a smaller 

 allied species (Spercheus emarginatus) carries its eggs, 

 as many spiders do, in a bag attached to its abdomen ; 

 the leaf-rolling beetle (Rhynchites betulac) cuts a 

 birch-leaf in a manner implying a difficult problem in 

 applied mathematics, and rolls it up into the shape of 

 an ingenious funnel, in which it deposits its eggs ; 

 whilst Rhynchites pubescens saws a cradle for its eggs 

 in the wood of an oak-twig, the ear-wig hatches its 

 eggs like a hen, whilst Lomechusa strumosa, just like 

 cuckoos, confides its brood to the care of ants; they 



all do their duty with equal prudence, but all too are 

 10 



