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We will not be too certain, for here is the Four-spotted Clythra, who would flatly contradict us. The male has fore-legs of modest dimensions, in conformity with the usual rules; he places himself crosswise like the others and nevertheless achieves his ends without hindrance. He finds it enough to modify slightly the gymnastics of his embrace.
The rest, the little brown barrel, broached at one end and bearing a raised lid, must therefore be an accessory integument, a sort of exceptional shell, of which I do not as yet know any other example. The Long-legged Clythra and the Four-spotted Clythra know nothing of packing their eggs in long-stemmed bundles.
The Twelve-spotted Mylabris and the Four-spotted Mylabris present differences quite as pronounced in this respect. The cause which makes a dwarf or a giant of the same insect, irrespective of its sex, can be only the smaller or greater quantity of food.
It remains to decide upon the material employed. From its horny appearance there is reason to believe that the little barrel of the Taxicorn Clythra and the scales of the Four-spotted Clythra are the products of a special secretion; and, now that it is too late, I much regret that I neglected to look for the apparatus yielding this secretion in the neighbourhood of the cloaca.
The Long-legged Clythra's are a very dark brown and remind one of a thimble, a comparison which is the more exact inasmuch as they are dented with quadrangular pits, arranged in spiral series which cross one another with exquisite precision. Those of the Four-spotted Clythra are pale in colour.
As a standard of comparison, the Four-spotted Mylabris, of a more imposing size, was added to the first two. A fourth, Zonitis mutica, whom I did not need to consult, knowing that she was not connected with the matter in hand and being familiar with her pseudochrysalis, completed my school of egg-layers. I proposed, if possible, to obtain her primary larva.
The eggs of the Twelve-spotted Mylabris are white, cylindrical, rounded at both ends and measure a millimetre and a half in length by half a millimetre in width. Those of the Four-spotted Mylabris are straw coloured and of an elongated oval, a trifle fuller at one end than at the other. Length, two millimetres; width, a little under one millimetre.
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