96 STATES OF INSECTS. 



eggs of the tailor bird in its twig-suspended nest from 

 the attack of snakes. Reaumur has described the eggs 

 of a kind of fly, common upon the excrements of the 

 horse and other animals (Scatophaga vulgaris Latr.), or 

 one related to it, that requires to be immersed in the dung 

 to which it is committed, on which the future grubs are 

 to feed. He found that if not thus surrounded with 

 moisture, they infallibly shrivelled up and came to no- 

 thing ; but it is equally necessary that they should not be 

 wholly covered : if they were, the young larva would be 

 suffocated at its first exit from the egg. In what way is 

 this nice point secured ? In this manner. Each egg is 

 provided at its upper end, at which the animal when 

 hatched comes out, with two diverging horns 3 ; these 

 prevent it from being stuck into the excrement, in which 

 the female deposits the eggs one by one, more than three- 

 fourths of its length : and when examined they resemble 

 not badly, as Reaumur remarks (except that their colour 

 is white), a parcel of cloves stuck into a pudding, as they 

 are neatly inserted at due distances in the disgusting 

 mass b . The French Naturalists found these eggs in 

 swine's dung ; I have observed them in cow-dung. La- 

 treille thinks that the bristles above described attached 

 to the eggs of Nepa and Ranatra have a similar use, as 

 the female plunges them all but these bristles into the 

 stems of aquatic plants c : but may not this have some- 

 thing to do with their oxygenation? Reaumur has 

 figured another egg of a dipterous insect which has a 

 longitudinal wing or lateral margin attached to it, giving 



a Plate XX. Fig. 19. a a. 



b Reaum. iv. 376—. t. xxvii./. 9, 10. 



c Hist. Nat. gen. et partic. des Crust, et Ins. xii. 28.2. 



