STATES OF INSECTS. 95 



from the leaf, to which she has previously applied it, to 

 a proper length, when the gluten becoming sufficiently 

 solid she wholly quits the egg,) the eggs are planted in 

 groups of ten or twelve on the surface of leaves and twigs, 

 from which they project like so many small fungi, to some 

 of which they have a remarkable resemblance. When the 

 included larva has made Its way out of them by forcing 

 open the top, they look like little vases, and were actually 

 once figured by a Naturalist, as we learn from Reaumur, 

 as singular parasitic flowers growing upon the leaves of 

 the elder, for the origin of which he was extremely puz- 

 zled to account 1 . Eggs similarly furnished with a pedicle 

 are also laid by other insects ; but as most of these have 

 been before alluded to, it is not necessary to describe them 

 here 5 . The cause of these differences of form is for the 

 most part concealed from us : in many instances it may 

 perhaps be referred to that will to vary forms, and so to 

 glorify his wisdom c and power, independently of other 

 considerations, which, as Dr. Paley has well remarked d , 

 seems often to have guided the Great Author of Nature. 

 But in some cases the end to be answered is sufficiently 

 evident. The long footstalks of the eggs of the Heme- 

 robius just mentioned, there can be little doubt, are meant 

 to place them out of the reach of the hosts of predaceous 

 insects which roam around them, from whose jaws, thus 

 elevated on their slender shaft, they are as safe as the 



a Reaum. iii. 386 — „ t. xxxii./. 1. t. xxxiii./. 5. 



b I allude to Ophion luteiim F. {Ichneumon L.) Vol. i. .Ed. 3. 

 p. 269. figured Plate XX. Fig. 22; and the Hydrachnce or Trom- 

 bidia. See above, and De Geer vii. 145. 



c From this circumstance called xoXvwow/of ootpia by the Apostle, 

 Ephes. iii. 10. 



d Nat. Theol. 11th Ed. 375. 



