VOL. LXXXI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 63 



cinerea,* were brought from the mountains, on the 20th of November, 1789- 

 Dr. R. kept them carefully in wide-mouthed crystal bottles, slightly covered ; 

 and this day, Dec. 4, 14 days from the time they came from the hills, thousands 

 of exceeding minute red animals were observed crawling about the lac and the 

 branches it adhered to, and still more were issuing from small holes on the sur- 

 face of the cells. By the assistance of glasses, small imperforated excrescences 

 were also observed, interspersed among these holes ; 2, regularly, to each hole, 

 crowned with some very fine white hairs, which being rubbed off, 2 white spots 

 appeared. The animals, when single, ran about pretty briskly ; but, in general, 

 on opening the cells, they were so numerous as to be crowded over each other. 

 The substance of which the cells were formed cannot be better described, with 

 respect to appearance, than by saying it is like the transparent amber that beads 

 are made of. The external covering of the cells may be about half a line thick, 

 is remarkably strong, and able to resist injuries : the partitions are much thinner. 

 The cells are in general irregular squares, pentagons, and hexagons, about -i- of 

 an inch in diameter, and ^ of an inch deep : they have no communication with 

 each other. All those he opened, during the time the animals were issuing 

 from them, contained in 1 side, and which occupied half the cell, a small bag, 

 filled with a thick red jelly-like liquor, replete with what he took to be eggs. 

 These bags, or utriculi, adhere to the bottom of the cells, and have each 2 

 necks, which pass through perforations in the external coat of the cells, forming 

 the before-mentioned excrescences, ending in some very fine hairs. 



The other half of the cells have a distant opening, and contain a white sub- 

 stance, like some few filaments of cotton rolled together, and a number of the 

 little red insects themselves crawling about, ready to make their exit. Their 

 portion of each cell is about a half; and he thinks must have contained near 100 

 of these animals. Other cells, less forward, contained in this half with 1 open- 

 ing, a thick, red, dark blood-coloured liquor, with numbers of exceedingly 

 minute eggs, many times smaller than those found in the small bags which oc- 

 cupied the other half of the cells. Several of these insects he observed had drawn 

 up their legs, and lay flat ; they did not move on being touched ; nor did they 

 show any signs of life on the greatest irritation.-J- 



Dec. 5. The same minute hexapodes continue issuing from their cells in 

 numbers. 



Dec. 6. The male insect, he says, I have found to-day, at least what I think 



* Lac, on this coast, is always found on the 3 following species of mimosa ; 1st, a new species, 

 called by the Gentoos conda corinda ; 2d, mimosa glauca of Koenig ; and, 3dly, mimosa cinerea of 

 Linnaeus. — Orig. 



+ It will appear in the sequel, that these were on the point of transformation into tlie pupa state. 

 —Orig. 



