STATES OF INSECTS. 91 



very extensively. It is stated, however, by Reaumur 3 , 

 that the reverse of this takes place in the eggs of the 

 hive-bee, those that are to produce males being larger 

 than the rest. 



Another peculiarity connected with the present head is 

 the augmentation in bulk which takes place, after exclusion, 

 in the eggs of the great tribe of saw-flies ( Tenthredo L.), the 

 gall-flies (Cynips L.), the ants [Formica L.) and the water- 

 mites {Hy drachma Maill. Atax F.). Those of the two for- 

 mer, which are usually deposited in theparenchymous sub- 

 stance of the leaves, or of the young twigs, of various plants, 

 imbibe nutriment in some unknown manner, through their 

 membranous skins, from the vegetable juices which sur- 

 round them b , and when they have attained their full size 

 are nearly twice as large as when first laid. Except in the 

 eggs of fishes, whose volume in like manner is said to 

 augment previously to the extrusion of the young, there 

 is nothing analogous to this singular fact in any other of 

 the oviparous tribes of animals, the eggs of which have 

 always attained their full size when they are laid. 



It is to M. P. Huber that we are indebted for the 

 knowledge of the fact that the eggs of ants grow after 

 being laid, a circumstance favoured probably by the 

 moist situation in which the workers are always careful 

 to keep them. By an accurate admeasurement he found 

 that those nearly ready to be hatched were almost twice 

 as big as those just laid c . A similar observation was 

 made on the red eggs of a water-mite (Hydrachna abs- 

 tergens) by Rosel, who conjectured that they draw their 

 means of increase from the body of the water-scorpions 



:l Reaum. v. 477. b Ibid. iii. 579. v. 121. c Foarmis, 69—. 



