STATES OF INSECTS. 81 



an insect. Each of these bracelets, as the French gar- 

 deners aptly call them, is composed of from 200 to 300 

 pyramidal eggs with flattened tops a , having their axes 

 perpendicular to the circumference of the twig to which 

 they are fastened, surrounding it in a series of from fif- 

 teen to seventeen close spiral circles, and having their 

 interstices filled up with a tenacious brown gum, which, 

 while it secures them alike from the wintry blast and the 

 attack of voracious insects, serves as a foil to the white 

 enamel of the eggs that it encompasses. It is not easy 

 to conceive how these moths contrive to accomplish so 

 accurately with their tail and hind feet an arrangement 

 which would require nicety from the hands of an artist ; 

 nor could Reaumur, with all his efforts and by any con- 

 trivance, satisfy himself upon this head. He bred num- 

 bers of the fly from the egg, and supplied the females 

 after impregnation with appropriate twigs ; but these, as 

 though resolved that imprisonment should not force from 

 them the secret of their art, laid their eggs at random, 

 and made no attempt to place them symmetrically b . 



This illustrious Entomologist was more successful in 

 discovering the mode in which another insect, the com- 

 mon gnat, whose group of eggs is, in some respects, as 

 extraordinary as that last described, performs its opera- 

 tions. The eggs of this insect, of a long phial-like form, 

 are glued together, side by side, to the number of from 

 250 to 300, into an oblong mass, pointed and more 

 elevated at each end, so as considerably to resemble a 

 little boat in shape. You must not here suppose that I 

 use the term boat by way of illustration merely ; for it 

 has all the essential properties of a boat. In shape it 



a Plate XX. Fig. 14. b Reaum. i 95— /. 1—13. 



VOL. III. G 



