94? STATES OF INSECTS. 



water-scorpion (Nepa cinerea) are oblong, and at the 

 upper end are surrounded by a sort of coronet, consisting 

 of seven slender rays or bristles of the length of the egg % 

 so as to resemble somewhat the seeds of Carduus bene- 

 dictus (Cnicus acarna h ) of the old botanists. One would 

 think this spinous circlet a very awkward appendage to 

 bodies which are to be gradually extruded through the 

 fine membranous ovaries and oviduct which inclose them : 

 but they are so admirably packed, the unarmed end of 

 each egg fitting closely into the space inclosed by the 

 spines of the one next below it, or, rather, the spines 

 which are moveable, embracing it closely, that not only 

 is no room lost, but the ovaries are perfectly secure from 

 injury. The eggs of another species of this tribe (Ra- 

 natra linearis) have only two of these spines or bristles 

 — they are inserted in the stem of a water-rush (Scirpus) 

 or other aquatic plant, so as to be quite concealed, and 

 are only to be detected by the two bristles which stand 

 out from it e . The eggs of the beautiful lace- winged flies 

 (Uemerobius), those golden-eyed insects so serviceable in 

 destroying the plant-lice (Aphides d ), are still more sin- 

 gular. Those of H. Perla are oval, and each of them 

 attached to a filiform pedicle not thicker than a hair, 

 and seven or eight times as long as the egg. By this pe- 

 dicle (which is supposed to be formed by a glutinous 

 matter attached to one end, which the female draws out 

 by abstracting her ovipositor with the egg partly in it 



a Plate XX. Fig. 23. Swamm. Bill. Nat. t. iii. /. 7, 8. In a 

 specimen I opened of this insect the bristles converged so as to form 

 a kind of tail to the egg. 



b Darwin Phytolog. 512. 



Geoffr. Ins. Par. i. 480. t. x.f. ]. b. c. 



'' See above, Vol.. I. p. 2G1. 



