MISCELLANEOUS. 247 



resembled very fine silk stowed between one and the 

 other, evidently to keep them from injury. I placed one 

 of these curious things on a slip of glass and laid it on 

 the stage of the microscope, and threw a flood of light 

 into the hollow egg-boat, which the observant author of 

 " Insect Transformations " (a very useful and interesting 

 book on entomology, and one of the most reliable and 

 readable too, in my opinion, that a lover of nature can 

 desire) tells us is the dead body of the mother, and 

 which singularly reminds us of the fabled Phoenix. 

 What was my astonishment when the heat from the 

 flame, falling from the convex side of the condensing lens, 

 brought the insects to life, and, breaking through the 

 shell that covered them, there I had the delight of be- 

 holding the secret of artificial hatching, while the living 

 and very minute creatures made their first appearance in 

 their perfect form ! 



The soft downy substance, so carefully deposited 

 between the eggs, sorely puzzled me, and so did the 

 singular covering ; and I only discovered that this little 

 dark -brown speck was the shrivelled body of the fond 

 mother laid over the offspring she was never to see, when 

 I found a similar story related in the work last referred 

 to, where the amiable author, describing a similar coccus, 

 say?, " Those which are found in our green-houses, and 

 which are the pest of the grape-vines in the neighbour- 

 hood of London, both in and out of doors, secrete a sort 

 of white silky gum, very like gossamer, as the first bed of 

 their eggs. Be'amur could not discover that the mother 

 insect was furnished with any organ similar to those of 

 spiders and caterpillars for spinning tins gossamer. We 

 may remark that the covering formed by the body of the 

 mother coccus prevents this substance from drying, as 

 the webs of spiders do, and, consequently, it can at any 



