
























HEMIPTERA. | 
winged ftate ¥, we are indebted to her for the time of the appearance of this exotic fpecies in that ftate, 
as well as for a correct figure of its pupa. 
Authors vary in their accounts of its native country. Linnzus, following Merian, makes it Surinam; 
Margravius, Brafi/; and Fabricius, America generally. We obferve a flight difference between our Chinefe 
{pecimen and the figures in preceding works referred to by Fabricius; but in giving it as the Nepa Grandis 
of that author, we have no hefitation, having compared it with thofe fpecies referred to by Fabricius in the 
collection of the Right Hon. Sir Jofeph Banks, Bart. 


N EPA CRU SRheEcC A. 
EGG-CARRYING WATER SCORPION. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTER 
AND 
SYNONYMS. 
Without tail, brown. Margin of the thorax, and anterior edge of the wing cafes, pale. 
Nepa Rustica: ecaudata fufca thoracis elytroramque margine antico albido. Fab. Ent. Syf. T. 4. 62. 3. 
Nepa Plana. Sulz. Hift. Inf. tab. 7. fig 2. 


Infeéts in general difcover an extraordinary degree of care, and ingenuity, in depofiting their eggs in 
the moft fecure fituations, or places where the infant brood, when hatched, may be provided with proper 
fuftenance. Thofe of the aquatic kind ufually Jay them in receffes in the mud or fand, or under loofe 
ftones that lie at the bottom of the water: others, with as much care, and more ingenuity, hollow out the 
interior fubftance of the large ftalks of water plants, and depofit their eggs in them; or, rifing out of the 
water, lay them in the extreme branches of thofe plants, to fecure them from other aquatic depredators. 
The Nepa ruftica difplays even more fagacity, or attachment for its eggs, than thofe creatures; for it never 
leaves them. Till they are hatched, it bears them on its back, in a clufter of an oval fhape; thefe eggs are 
of an oblong form, and are faftened by the narroweft end to a thin film, or plate of cement, that caufes 
them to adhere to the polifhed furface of the wing cafes; when thefe eggs, about an hundred in number, 
are hatched, it cafts off the exuviz of the clutter, and differs no longer in general appearance from the male 
of the fame {pecies. 
Our figures reprefent the fituation of the eggs on the back, and the infe& alfo after they are caft off. 
It is not commonly received with the eggs upon it. Found on the coaft of Coromandel, as well as China. 
Y Nepa Cinerea and Linearis are Englifh fpecies; thefe live in the water till they have wings, when they occafionally quit it to purfue 
other winged creatures. —Cu1na produces a fpecies which differs very little except in fize from N. Cinerea. Fabricius calls it NEepA Rugpra 
in his Ent. Sy. T: 4. g. 62. fp. 6. We deem a farther defcription of it unneceffary. 
