PARTHENOGENESIS 19 



exposed. There will then be seen what, before 

 it was cut, was a circular radiation of stiff 

 resilient bristles sloping upwards and inwards 

 until their ends meet and form a point. This 

 extraordinary contrivance is on the system of 

 an eel-pot, inverted. 



It should be said that the web is produced, 

 loosely diffused, above the bristles' point, so 

 that if, by chance, anything — a. small insect, 

 for instance — ^penetrates this covering, still it 

 cannot enter the inner chamber, for it would 

 be held up in a kind of pocket which runs 

 round at the base of the bristles. Thus it will 

 be seen that no entrance to the interior from 

 the outside is possible, but the inmate can 

 with very little exertion push up and out 

 through the practically unresisting bristles. 



How the larva sets about such an elaborate 

 device must, for obvious reasons, remain a 

 mystery. 



With regard to this species, it may be here 

 worth recording that a case of parthenogenesis 

 came under the writer's notice some few years 

 ago, when a batch of ova deposited by an 

 isolated female, bred in confinement, fully 

 hatched out and were subsequently reared. 



