122 INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



small; and I thence inferred that the egg would 

 have, and indeed had, increased in the gall.'* 



R 'sel made a similar observation on the red eggs 

 of a water-rnite (Hydrackna abstergens) ; and he was 

 induced to suppose (justly, as we think) that, as they 

 are deposited upon the bodies of water-scorpions 

 (Nepidw, LEACH), they derive their means of in- 

 crease from them.J De Geer remarked that the 

 water-scorpions, when much infested with them, be- 

 came gradually weakened as the eggs increased in 

 size.J 



Huber the younger, in the course of his experi 

 ments, discovered that the eggs of ants, from being 

 small and opaque, became comparatively large* and 

 transparent. ' To be convinced of the truth of this,' 

 he says, ' I viewed those eggs with the microscope. 

 I also measured them, and having separated them 

 from each other, found the longest to be those only 

 in which the grubs were hatched in my presence. 

 If I removed them from the workers, before they 

 attained their full length and transparency, they dried 

 up, and the grubs never quitted them.' Huber is 

 inclined to attribute this remarkable increase and 

 transparency to the humidity imparted to them by the 

 working ants who so assiduously pass them through 

 their mouths. c For,' he adds, ' if they be not sur- 

 rounded with a liquid, or preserved from the influence 

 of the external air, their pellicle, moistened every 

 instant by the workers, may preserve a certain degree 

 of suppleness and expansibility, according to the de- 

 velopment of the included grub.'^ 



The most minute observations, however, of this 

 kind, which have hitherto been published^ were made 



* R'aumur, Mem. vol. iii, p. 479. 



t R sel, Insecten, vol. iii, p. 152. 



4" De Geer, Mem. des Insectes, vol. vii, p. 145. 



M. P. Huber on Ants, p. 72. 



