18 TRUE TALES OF THE INSECTS. 



a length of more than three centimetres is well worth 

 making (see Fig. 7). The gummy mass voided by the 

 insect has been spread out, we see, into a succession 

 of layers, fitting lightly by their curvature, rounded and 

 equalized on the surface in the form of the ovoid cap, 

 the layers being of insignificant thickness. A transverse 

 cutting of the capsule shows that each layer is divided 

 into three parts ; a median chamber or sac, like a flat 

 bottle, open at the top, containing, towards the bottom, 

 the eggs, which are narrow, longish, yellow in colour, and 

 to the number of eight to ten, resting by their large end, 

 and adhering to the floor of the mass ; and all ranged on 

 the same plan, somewhat fan-wise, diverging towards the 

 floor, and in most symmetrical order, one half on either 

 side, with or without a central egg ; moreover, each is 

 enveloped in a gummy pellicle. The two walls of this 

 flat bottle or cell which contains the eggs are very tough 

 and chitinous, and each partition narrows above the 

 space enclosing the eggs, and terminates in a neck, by 

 an arched lamina or scale, imbricating with the lamina 

 of the partition above, in the direction of the small end 

 of the mass. Together these laminae constitute a scaly 

 band on the median line of the convex upper side of the 

 capsule, dividing the surface into two symmetrical parts. 

 By the terminal scale of each partition imbricating with 

 the scale of the partition following, the cell with the eggs 

 placed between the two partitions is closed, that is to 



