STATES OP INSECTS. 63 



bring into the world living young ones, and have on that 

 account been considered as viviparous, but incorrectly, 

 for the embryos of none of these are nourished, as in the 

 true viviparous animals, within a uterus by means of a 

 placenta, but receive their development within true eggs 

 which are hatched in the body of the mother. This is 

 proved by the observations of Leeuwenhoek, who found 

 eggs in the abdomen of a female scorpion a ; and of 

 Reaumur, with regard to the flesh-fly [Musca carnaria) 

 and other viviparous flies as they have been called 5 . A 

 similar mode of production takes place in vipers and 

 some other reptiles, which have hence been denominated 

 ovo-viviparous, to distinguish them from the true vivi- 

 parous animals — the class Mammalia. By far the larger 

 portion of insects is oviparous in the ordinary acceptation 

 of the term. The ovo-viviparous tribes at present known 

 are scorpions ; the flesh-fly and several other flies ; a 

 minute gnat belonging to Latreille's family of Tipularice c ; 

 some species of Coccus ,• some bugs (Cimicida) d ; and most 

 Aphides, which last also exhibit the singular fact of indi- 

 viduals of the same species being some oviparous and 

 others ovo-viviparous, the former being longer in propor- 

 tion than the latter. — Bonnet, however, is of opinion that 

 the eggs of the first are not perfect eggs, but a kind of 

 cocoon, which defends the larva, already formed in some 

 degree, from the cold of winter e . 



a Select Works by Hoole, i. 132. The fact is confirmed by M. L. 

 Dufour, who, having opened the abdomen of a female scorpion, found 

 in the midst of some eggs nearly mature a little scorpion a quarter 

 of an inch long ; it lay without motion, with its tail folded under the 

 body. N. Bid. d'Hist. Nat. xxx. 426. 



b Reaum. iv. 425—. c Ibid. 428—. t. xxix./. 10, 11. 



11 Busch, a German author, affirms that many Cimicidce are subject 

 to this law. Sckneid. i. 206. 



e Quoted in Huber Fourmis, 20S. Some reptiles also are at one 



