Kirx.—Mateng-habits and Early Life-history of Opifex fuscus. 403 
was freed by a single effort. Immediately the insect spread them, and they 
rested on the surface of the water. The other legs were steadily drawn 
out, and only the last two or three segments of the abdomen were now 
within the puparium. The puparium was now seized between the hind 
adult wing 
The male imago does not commence hunting for pupae immediately 
on emergence from the puparium, but may do so within ten minutes, and 
usually does so within twenty. 
ave for several summers examined the pools, and the rocks that 
border them, together with any growth of weeds, in the hope of i 
the eggs, but always without success. During the early part of last 
summer very young larvae made their appearance in a mating-tank, and 
it was evident that eggs had been deposited. On the 7th March I placed 
newly emerged insects, male and female, in a large cage resting over a 
dish of water with a white oyster-shell rising above the surface. On the 
evening of the 10th, at 9 p.m., a female was observed resting on the shell 
at the edge of the water. Now and again the abdomen was raised and 
had been resting, and just below the surface of the water, a group of five 
tiny eggs. They were black, and easily seen against the white shell, as 
I had hoped they would be. At another spot there was a group of seven, 
and eight others were found singly at different spots. All were very 
lightly attached. There were also nine eggs floating in the water. These 
floating eggs looked spherical, though in reality oval, the spherical appear- 
ance being due to the fact that one end of the egg, the narrow end, was 
ownward. The attached eggs had short blunt “ processes " of the shell in 
under observation, another dish, containing a piece of white sandstone, 
being substituted. 
