^4^ tH'E PHILOSOPHY ' 



kingdom. He found that they contained thoufands of fmaH 

 eggs, and that, from thefe eggs, fmall animals were produc- 

 ed, which ran about with fome quicknefs, and ipread them- 

 felves all over the tree or bufh. After fome days, they at- 

 tach themfelves to the ftem and branches, remain immovea- 

 ble, and gradually increafe to their full dimenlions, when 

 their bodies are found to contain numbers of eggs. As the 

 perfefl animal had no apparent motion, and yet multiplied 

 it? fpecies, it was firfl thought to be an hermaphrodite of a 

 lingular kind, and that it was capable of producing without 

 any foreign aid. But Reaumur difcovered that they were 

 impregnated by fmall flies, and thefe fmall flies were male 

 gall infects. The head, the body, the breaft, and 

 the fix limbs of this fiy, are of a deep and red colour ; and 

 the wings, v/hich are proportionally large, are white, and 

 bordered with a band of fine carmine red. In the month of 

 April, he perceived numbers of thefe files wandering about 

 on the gall-infedts. He obferved that they pierced the cov^ 

 ering of the gall-infeds with a kind of fling fhaped like a 

 needle. This circumftance created a fufpicion that thefe flies 

 were the males, and that this was their mode of impregnat- 

 ing the eggs of the female. To afcertain this point, he open- 

 ed a number of gall-infecb, which had no uncommon ap- 

 pearance, and, in fome of them, he found the males, in eve- 

 ry flage of their exigence, till they pierced che external 

 covering, came out in the form of perfect flies, and attached 

 themfelves, as ufual, to the females. The glow-worm, an 

 animal condemned to crawl perpetually on the furface of the 

 earth, is a female ; and the male inrtead of a reptile, is a 

 fcarabaeus, or beetle, furnifhed with four wings. A fpecies 

 of phofphorus, emitted from the body of the female, excites 

 the attention of this apparently ftrange male, who darts 

 down upon her, and adlually enables her to continue the 

 kind*. The female of another fpecies of beetle is a perfeft 

 * Reaumur, Oeuvres dc Bonnet, toui, 2, page 87. edit, dvo. 



