70 STATES OF INSECTS. 



rated, which at first is white and soft, but soon becomes 

 brown and hard. This egg-case, as it may be called, 

 contains sixteen or eighteen eggs arranged in a double 

 series, and the cock-roaches when hatched make their 

 escape through a cleft in its straight side, which shuts so 

 accurately when they have quitted it, that at first it ap- 

 pears as entire as before 3 . The insects of the genus 

 Mantis also, or what are called the praying insects, when 

 they deposit their eggs, eject with them a soft substance, 

 which hardens in the air and forms a long kind of enve- 

 lope resembling parchment, in which the eggs are ar- 

 ranged also in a double series. And the Locusts {Gryl- 

 lus Locusta L.) are said by Morier b to deposit in the 

 ground an oblong substance, of the shape of their abdo- 

 men, which contains a considerable number of eggs ar- 

 ranged neatly in rows. The peristaltic motion observed 

 in the females of some insects during oviposition has been 

 before described c . 



ii. Situation. Under this head I include the situation 

 in which the female insect places her eggs when extruded, 

 whether she continues her care of them and carries them 

 about till they hatch, or whether she entirely deserts 

 them, placing them either without a covering within 

 reach of their food, or enveloping them in hair or other- 

 wise protecting them from accident or the attack of ene- 

 mies. I shall consider them under two views : Jirst, as 

 depositing their eggs in groups, whether covered or naked ; 

 and secondly, as depositing them singly. 



• x Goeze Natarf. xvii. 183—. t. iv. /. 16—19. Corap. N. Diet. 

 d'Hist. Nat. iii. 475. and xix. 239. De Geer iii. 533. 

 b Second Journey through Persia, 100 — . 

 c See Vol. II. p. 36. 



