C 96 ] 
loofely, that it cannot be accounted for a copulation. 
They feem to eat nothing at all. They creep about 
the plant a week or two, going often underground, and 
getting up again. Then they make themfelves a deep 
cylindrical hole in the fand down to the hard bottom 
of the pot, the end of which they cover with a fine 
white filk growing upon their bodies. There they 
lay their eggs and die. Others, who are diffurbed 
in their work, grow weary and white, as if they 
were powdered all over with a white meal, which 
through a glafs appears to be very fine white filky 
hairs, coming out over all the body. At laft they 
lay them down upon their backs : the filky hairs grow 
very faff, to the length of one inch and a half, and 
the infed twills with its claws the hairs all round its 
body, fo as to referable a fmall heap of cotton ; but the 
hairs are fo tender, that a fmall wind will tear and 
deflroy it. In this heap of cotton they lay their eggs, 
from fifty to an hundred, and then they die. Thus 
they remain till the middle of July. Afterwards, 
though they make their holes, or their cotton heaps, 
yet they die without laying eggs. The eggs are crim- 
fon, tranfparent, fcarce vifiblc, long, and round- 
pointed at both ends. In a week’s time the young 
infeds creep out: they are like their parents, but 
fmooth, tranfparent, and crimfon. I prefented them 
every day frefh roots of the polygonum, but I cannot 
fay they have eat any of them. In a week or two 
they difappear, going under ground. I prefcrve all 
thefe things. The infeds feem now all dead, and 
fo do the young ones, buried up in fand : but I hope 
next fpring to fee them alive, and to profecute their 
farther change. I have killed about one hundred of 
the 
