190 GAIN OF A LOSS. 



them in a box to observe them on my return home ; but a 

 violent shower, which came on at this moment, offered me a 

 sight as singular as unexpected. As soon as the rain was over, 

 I saw the earth strewed with females without wings. They 

 were most likely the very ones that I had seen in the air. * * 

 On my return home, I placed my eight prisoners with some 

 moist earth in a garden pot covered with a glass. It was nine 

 o'clock in the evening : at ten the females had lost their wings, 

 which I observed scattered here and there, and were hiding 

 themselves under the earth." Three of the insects placed in 

 a box, without earth at the bottom, did not, on this account, 

 divest themselves of their wings ; but another, furnished with 

 a light earthen bed, no sooner perceived it, than " she extended 

 her wings with some effort, brought them he/ore her head, crossed 

 them in all directions, threw them from side to side, and produced 

 so many singular contortions, that all four wings fell off at 

 the same moment. After this change she reposed, brushed 

 her corselet with her feet, then traversed the ground, appear- 

 ing to seek a place of shelter ; she partook of the honey I 

 gave her, and at last found a hiding place under some loose 

 earth that formed a little natural grotto. " Huber repeated, 

 and describes minutely, the like experiments on several 

 females of different species, and always with the same results. 

 Gould (writing about 1747, and calling the winged females 

 " large ant-flies," the males small ones,) says^-"If you place 

 a number (of the former) in a box, the wings of many of them 



