OF SBLBOBNEll 109 



that singular production to be derived from the egg of the 

 Musca chamceleon : l see Geoffrey, t. 17, f. 4. 



A full history of noxious insects hurtful in the field, 

 garden, and house, suggesting all the known and likely 

 means of destroying them, would be allowed by the public 

 to be a most useful and important work. 2 What knowledge 

 there is of this sort lies scattered, and wants to be collected ; 

 great improvements would soon follow of course. A know- 

 ledge of the properties, economy, propagation, and in short, 

 of the life and conversation of these animals, is a necessary 

 step to lead us to some method of preventing, their depre- 

 dations. 



As far as I am a judge, nothing would recommend ento- 

 mology more than some neat plates that should well express 

 the generic distinctions of insects according to Linnaeus ; 



itself in the stomach by means of the two hooks with which it is fur- 

 nished at its smaller extremity ; its mode of growth ; its detachment, 

 when fully grown, from the stomach; its passage through the intestines 

 to remain, during its pupa state, in some convenient spot of dang or 

 earth ; some anatomical particulars respecting it ; and many other facts 

 relating to the fly in its various stages, as well as to other species ; the reader 

 is referred to the paper in the " Linnean Society's Transactions," from 

 which the above extracts are taken. Interesting as they are, the ex- 

 planation of them would extend this note to too great a length, and 

 would carry it altogether away from the point to which it is chiefly 

 directed, the admirable provision adverted to in the text for securing 

 for the bots the only habitation in which they could exist. ED. 



1 The singular larva of the Stratiomys chamceleon, DE GEER, has been 

 repeatedly figured and described ; and the use of the star-like circle of 

 fbathered hairs appended to its tail, as a means of suspending that part 

 and the orifice of the respiratory tube in their centre, has been often 

 explained : it is among the most beautiful as well as the most curious 

 contrivances resorted to for such a purpose by ever-varying Nature. 

 The eggs from which these larvae are produced are affixed by the parent 

 fly to plants living in the water in which the development of the mag- 

 got is to take place : those seen by Messrs. Kirby and Spence were 

 " arranged like tiles on a roof, one laid partly over another, on the under 

 side of the leaves of the water-plantain." ED. 



2 Since this observation was penned, the labours of Messrs. Kirby 

 and Spence, Curtis, Newman, and others have gone far to supply the 

 want alluded to, and have placed in the hands of students a store of 

 most valuable and interesting facts on the subject of entomology. ED. 



