[732] Phil. Trans. 1740, p. 441. I confess, notwithstanding Mr. Baker's general accuracy, that I suspect some mistake here.
[733] Leeuw. Op. ii. 363.
[734] Not having ever met with another specimen, I am unable to say of what precise species of aphidivorous fly it is the larva, nor can I find a figure of it, though it approaches near to one given by De Geer (vi. t. 7. f. 1-3). Its shape is oblong-oval, length about four lines, and colour pale red speckled with black. Each of the seven or eight segments which compose the body projects on each side into three serrated flat aculei or teeth; three or four similar but smaller aculei arm the head: and two, much larger than the rest, the anus, one on each side of the usual bifid protuberance which bears the respiratory plates. A bifid tubercular elevation is also placed in the middle of the back of each segment.
[735] Reaum. Mem. de l'Acad. de Paris, An. 1713.211.—De Geer, vii. 187. See also Hoole's Leeuwenhoek, i. 41.—t. 2. f. 20-22. Leeuwenhoek examined a spinner that was not so big as a common grain of sand, and the number of tubes issuing from it was more than a hundred. He affirms that, besides the larger spinners, in the space between them there are four smaller ones, each furnished with organs for spinning threads, but smaller and fewer in number. Latreille speaks only of a thousand spinners from each teat, and of six thousand threads from the whole—but he does not enter further into the subject. Nouv. Dict. d'Hist. Nat. ii. 278.
[736] Hist. Anim. Ang. p. 8.
[737] De Geer, vii. 189.
[738] Leeuw. Opusc. iii. 317. f. 1.
[739] 1 Sam. xxiv. 4.
[740] Lesser, L. ii. 291.
[741] L. xi. c. 24.