STATES OF INSECTS. 69 



jelly, but had rather a waxy appearance, and seems to 

 have been covered by a membrane : so that the ex- 

 cluded larvae must probably have eaten their way out 

 of it. I have still by me, in 1822, specimens of these 

 egg-packets, which, after the lapse of so many years, re- 

 tain their original form and colour. It is not improbable 

 that other species extrude their eggs in a similar case. 

 Scopoli says of P. bicaudata L., that the female carries 

 about under her belly her eggs united into a globe, like 

 Lycosa saccata*. The eggs of Geometra Potamogata F. 

 are also enveloped in a gelatinous substance, and the 

 mass is covered with leaves' 5 . 



Insects of the Diptera order also, like frogs and toads, 

 commit their eggs to the water imbedded in masses of 

 jelly. Dr. Derham describes two different kinds of 

 them, in one of which the eggs were laid in parallel rows 

 end to end, and in another in a single row, in which the 

 sides were parallel . But the most remarkable and 

 beautiful specimen of this kind that I ever saw was one 

 that, many years ago, I took out of a pond at Wittersham 

 in Kent, from which I requested a young lady to make the 

 drawing I send you d . The mass of jelly, about an inch 

 and a quarter long, and rather widest in the middle, was 

 attached by one end to some aquatic grass, and from one 

 end to the other ran a spiral thread of very minute eggs, 

 the turns of the screw being alternately on each side. 



The mode of exclusion of the eggs of the Blattte, which 

 are engaged for a whole week in the business of oviposi- 

 tion, is very singular : the female deposits one or two 

 large suboviform capsules, as large as half their abdomen, 

 rounded on one side, and on the other straight and ser- 



a Ent. Carniol. 269. n. 705. b Reaum. ii. 401. 



c In Raii Hist. Ins. 264. d Plate XX. Fig. 24. 



