RUMICIA PHL^AS. 383 



The micropylar area is about 0*1 lmm. in diameter, and is crowded 

 with small reticulate cells, more or less hexagonal and more or less 

 whorled in their arrangement from the centre outwards, so that, 

 from the centre outwards in the curved line of the whorl, 

 one may count five to seven cells, each, therefore, not far from 

 Scudder's measurement of them, viz., OOlmm. in diameter. 

 Centrally is an area about 0'02mm. in diameter, in which are four 

 or five black or brilliant (according to illumination and focus) 

 points (the actual micropyle?). Surrounding the micropylar area, or 

 rather bounding it, is a margin of the frothy superstructure, and this 

 being nearly transparent in the " balsam," cells like those of the micro- 

 pylar area are seen to continue out beneath it, until the coating is too^ 

 thick to admit of certainty ; these cells are only slightly larger than 

 those of the micropylar area. Scudder's figure of the micropyle 

 of this egg (hypophlaeas) gives a good idea of the relation of the area 

 to the surrounding pits, but is quite diagrammatic, showing two rows 

 of cells in the micropylar mesh, each separate and distinct, instead of 

 five or more rows pressed together honeycomb fashion. The egg has a 

 central hollow O09mm. in diameter, with a central minute, darker 

 point ; round the central hollow are eight cells varying in diameter from 

 O03mm. to O08mm., round this are larger ones O09mm. to 0-14mm. 

 in diameter, and the cells are, if anything, larger down to the base, 

 (Scudder describes the egg of hypophlaeas as having smaller cells 

 round the base. I suspect eggs of phlaeas could be found of this form, 

 and eggs of hypophlaeas of the form observed in the specimens I am now 

 examining.) Although the impression is strong that these spherical 

 depressions are circular, this is not so, they intersect each other, and 

 the appearance is as if the frothy material were still plastic after the 

 impressions were made. The lines of intersection are not curves 

 hanging from point to point, but are distinctly angulated at the lowest 

 point, and the triangular projections, where these depressions meet, have 

 tolerably flat sides, meeting in fairly straight lines, and terminate in a 

 point, never in a surface. The margin of each hollow, therefore, 

 where they are fairly regular and hexagonally placed, consists of six 

 angular points and six re-entering angles between them, low and flat, 

 but otherwise like the spikes of a conventional stage crown. The 

 texture (or marking) of the surface within the hollows is dotted and 

 confused, and seems to be best described as the result of what really is, 

 probably the fact, viz., the vesicular structure of the white superficial 

 sculptured coat of the egg (Chapman, October 1st, 1906). Twelve 

 eggs examined, except in size, appear to resemble exactly the 

 egg of Heodes virgaureae. They have a diameter of *55mm. at the 

 base, height -33mm.; in shape, they represent a rather depressed 

 segment of a sphere, the surface of which is covered with hexa- 

 gonal, honeycomb-like cells, of pretty considerable size ; at the 

 apex, the micropylar cell, surrounded by six smaller cells ; the lower 

 rounded basins of the cells are extremely finely reticulated. The 

 ground colour is grey-green ; the strongly projecting hexagonal cell- 

 walls are whiter ; the base of the egg is light green (Gillmer) . Circular 

 in outline, rather flattened, though convex, of a light cream colour, 

 very coarsely reticulated with whitish raised network. Two days 

 before hatching the colour changes to greyish (Buckler). The egg is 

 figured by Clark, Ent. Rec, xii., pi. xi., fig. 1 ; see also our pi. iii., figs.3 

 and 4. For Scudder's description of the egg, see antea, pp. 343-344. 



