264 " INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



could not be the production of chance or rottenness, 

 but the work of the same Omnipotent hand which 

 created the heavens and the earth. This tiny httle 

 fly is accordingly furnished with an admirable instru- 

 ment for depositing its eggs, in an ovipositor, which 

 it can thrust out and extend to a great length, so 

 that it can penetrate to a considerable depth into the 

 cracks of cheese, where it lays its eggs, 256 in 

 number. ' I have seen them myself,' says Svvam- 

 merdam, ' thrust out their tails for this purpose to an 

 amazing length, and by that method bury the eggs 

 in the deepest cavities. I found in a few days after- 

 wards a number of maggots which had sprung from 

 those eggs, perfectly resembling those of the first 

 brood that had produced the mother fly. I cannot 

 but also take notice that the rottenness of cheese is 

 really caused by these maggots; for they both crum- 

 ble the substance of it into small particles and also 

 moisten it with some sort of liquid, so that the 

 decayed part rapidly spreads. I once observed a 

 cheese which I had purposely exposed to this kind of 

 fly grow moist in a short time in those parts of it 

 where eggs had been deposited, and had afterwards 

 been hatched into maggots; though, before, the 

 cheese was perfectly sound and entire.'* 



The cheese-hopper is furnished with two horny 

 claw-shaped mandibles, which it uses both for dig- 

 ging into the cheese and for moving itself, being 

 destitute of feet. Its powers of leaping have been 

 observed by every one; and Swammerdam says, ' I 

 have seen one, whose length did not exceed the 

 fourth of an inch, leap out of a box six inches deep, 

 that is, twenty-four times the length of its own 

 body: others leap a great deal higher. '| For this 

 purpose it first erects itself on its tail, which is fur- 

 nished with two wart-like projections, to enable it to 



* Swammerdam, vol. ii, p. 69. t Bibl. Nat., vol. ii, p. 65. 



