274' STATES OF INSECTS. 



markable apparatus for this express and apparently sole 

 purpose. They are gifted with the power of introducing 

 air under the middle part of the head, to which the an- 

 tennae are fixed, and of inflating that part into a sort of 

 membranous vesicle as big as the head itself; by the action 

 of which against the end of the pupa-case, the lid is soon 

 forced off. So powerful is this singular lever, that it is 

 even sufficient to rupture the fibrous galls in which the 

 pupas of the gay-winged Tephritis Car did 2 - are inclosed. 

 That it is designed by Creative Wisdom to answer this 

 sole purpose seems proved, from its disappearing soon 

 after the disclosure of the fly, whose head shortly becomes 

 all alike hard. Reaumur suspects that it may also be 

 intended to promote the circulation of the insect's fluids ; 

 but to me his reasons appear not conclusive b . In one 

 instance a mode still more unexpected obtains. The il- 

 lustrious naturalist just named found that the fly which 

 proceeded from one of the rat-tailed grubs (Elop/iilus 

 Latr.) had actually the power of completely reversing its 

 situation in its narrow case; and that it then employed its 

 tail in pushing off the lid, which other species remove by 

 means of their heads c . 



The extrication of insects whose pupas are above 

 ground, like those of butterflies, many beetles, flies, &c, 

 is comparatively a simple operation. But what, you will 

 ask, becomes of those species whose pupas are. concealed 

 deep in the earth, or in the heart of the trees on which 

 their larva- have fed ? Of this you shall be informed. — 

 Coleopterous insects disclosed from pupae thus circum- 



a Reaum. iii. t. xh.f. 12—14. 



b For this whole account, see Reaum. iv. Mem. viii. 



c Ibid. 472. 



