INSECTS AND VERMES. 467 



CIMEX LINEARIS. 



AUGUST 12, 1775. Cimices linear es 6 are now eagerly 

 pairing on ponds and pools. The females, who vastly 

 exceed the males in bulk, dart and shoot along on the 

 surface of the water with the males on their backs. 

 When a female chooses to be disengaged, she rears, 

 and jumps, and plunges, like an unruly colt the lover 

 thus dismounted, soon finds a new mate. The females 

 afterwards retire to another part of the lake, perhaps to 

 deposit their foetus in quiet ; hence the sexes are found 

 separate, except in the pairing season. From the mul- 

 titude of minute young of all gradations of sizes, these 

 insects seem without doubt to be viviparous 7 . 



RANATRA LINEARfS. 



6 [Ranatra linearis, FABR.] 



7 The egg of the long water-bug has been sufficiently known for many 

 years. It is armed at one end by two bristles, arid is inserted into the 

 stem of an aquatic plant, generally of a club rush, in which it is so deeply 

 immersed by the aid of the lengthened ovipositor of the insect, as to be 

 entirely hidden from view ; the bristles alone projecting from the place 

 of concealment. The object of this curious arrangement is among the 

 most beautiful and beneficent of the provisions of nature. While a recep- 



H H 2 



