8*2 STATES OF INSECTS. 



pretty accurately resembles a London wherry, being 

 sharp and higher, to use a nautical phrase, fore and aft ; 

 convex below and concave above ; floating, moreover, 

 constantly on the keel or convex part. But this is not 

 all. It is besides a life-boat, more buoyant than even 

 Mr. Greathead's : the most violent agitation of the water 

 cannot sink it ; and what is more extraordinary, and a 

 property still a desideratum in our life-boats, though 

 hollow it never becomes filled with water, even though 

 exposed to the torrents that often accompany a thunder- 

 storm. To put this to the test, I yesterday (July 25, 1811) 

 placed half a dozen of these boats upon the surface of a 

 tumbler half full of water ; I then poured upon them a 

 stream of that element from the mouth of a quart bottle 

 held a foot above them. Yet after this treatment, which 

 was so rough as actually to project one out of the glass, 

 I found them floating as before upon their bottoms, and 

 not a drop of water within their cavity. 



This boat, which floats upon the surface of the water 

 until the larvae are disclosed, is placed there by the female 

 gnat. But how ? Her eggs, as in other insects, are 

 extruded one by one. They are so small at the base in 

 proportion to their length that it would be difficult to 

 make them stand singly upright on a solid surface, much 

 more on the water. How then does the gnat contrive 

 to support the first egg perpendicularly until she has 

 glued another to it— these two until she has fixed a 

 third, and so on until a sufficient number is fastened to- 

 gether to form a base capable of sustaining them in 

 their perpendicular position ? This is her process. She 

 fixes her four anterior legs upon a piece of leaf, or a 

 blade of grass, and projects her tail over the water. She 



