72 STATES OF INSECTS. 



Herman informs us, that the species of the genus Che- 

 lifer carry their eggs in a mass under their belly 3 . 



Madam Merian gives an account of two species of 

 Blatta, which she affirms carry an egg-pouch about with 

 them — one species (B. gigantea P) she describes as car- 

 rying its eggs in a globular pouch of web like certain 

 spiders, and the other in a brown bag, which, when 

 alarmed, it drops and makes off b . But this admirable 

 paintress of natural objects was not always correct in her 

 statements c : it seems very improbable, from the habits 

 of those species of which we know the history, that any 

 of them should spin a pouch of web for their eggs. 



The only insects certainly known to spin an egg-pouch 

 like the spiders, are the Hydrophili, a kind of water- 

 beetles. Some of these, as H. lividus, carry them about 

 with them, like Lycosa saccata, attached to the under 

 side of their body, as M. Miger observed d ; and others 

 when they are finished desert them. That of the great 

 water-beetle {JHydrophilus piceus) was long ago described 

 and figured by Lyonnet e ; and a more detailed account 

 of it has since been given by M. Miger f . In form 

 it somewhat resembles a turnip when reversed, since it 

 consists of a pouch of the shape of an oblate spheroid, 

 the great diameter of which is three quarters of an inch ; 

 and the small, half an inch, from which rises a curved 

 horn, about an inch long and terminating in a point g . 

 The animal is furnished with a pair of anal spinners, 

 which move from right to left, and up and down, with 



e N. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. xxvi. 447. b Ins. Surinam, t. i. 



c A striking instance of this may be seen in her forty-ninth plate, 

 in which she has clapped the rostrated head of Fulgora laternaria 

 upon the body of a Cicada Latr., affirming it to be the former fly in 

 its previous state ! This might be a trick upon her. 



A N. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. xv. 489. c Lesser L. i. 300. 



1 Annates du Museum, xiv. 441. B Lesser L. i. t. W.f. xvi. 



