Since I started writing these "Nature Notes" my wife has developed a keen interest in the multitudinous animal life that infests our garden. The other day I led her round on a "personally conducted" tour, when, armed sil magnifying glasses, we examined all manner of minute insects, including flies, wasps, aphids, butterflies and moths, beetles, ants and what are commonly known as bugs, along with the larvae of various larger species. Turning up the leaf of a Judas tree we made a remarkable discovery. There on the under side of the leaf was something that looked like a brooch cunningly wrought by some master workman of the jeweller's craft. In the middle was what looked like a cluster of a dozen or so setti pearls, and surrounding these in a perfect circle was an equal number of what might be taken for rubies, each touching its neighbour on either side. A closer examination revealed the "pearls" to be the shells of eggs, each with a round hole at the top and a neatly fitting lid; while the "rubies" were the larvae of some form of bug (Rhynchota or Hemiptera). These were oblate lozenge shaped, and about three times the size of the eggs from which they had been hatched. They were striated red and white with touches of black and yellow. Each had its head towards and almost touching the cluster of empty eggshells, and all remained perfectly motionless. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in the insect world, The same afternoon I took another look at my treasure, finding that the little insects had not stirred. The same was the case all through the following day and also on tae morning of the third day. But at noon of the latter when I turned up the leaf I was surprised to find a number of almost black insects, at least three times the size of the larvae previously noted, and one insect the same size as the others but transversely banded red and white. These insects, instead of being dormant like the larvae, were very lively, and soon ran off in all directions, leaving the cluster of pearl-like eggshells still adhering to the under surface of the leaf. What had happened in this little drama was that an adult female bug had deposited her eggs safely hidden and left them to hatch. When this took place the larvae, all soft and defenceless, had rapidly increased in size till their outer casings had hardened. They then had taken up their Positions round the eggs awaiting their first incult probably they fed upon the juices of the leaf by injecting their hypodermic needlelike proboscis (characteristic of the Rhynchota} into its soft tissues. Then in due course their skins split down their backs and out they came,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.