Here the insects lay their eggs, and white grubs are produced
wrapped in a black membrane. Apart from the membrane there is found
some wax in the honeycomb; and this a wax is much sallower in hue than
the wax in the honeycomb of the bee.
25
Ants copulate and engender grubs; and these grubs attach
themselves to nothing in particular, but grow on and on from small and
rounded shapes until they become elongated and defined in shape: and
they are engendered in spring-time.
26
The land-scorpion also lays a number of egg shaped grubs, and
broods over them. When the hatching is completed, the parent animal,
as happens with the parent spider, is ejected and put to death by
the young ones; for very often the young ones are about eleven in
number.
27
Spiders in all cases copulate in the way above mentioned, and
generate at first small grubs. And these grubs metamorphose in their
entirety, and not partially, into spiders; for, by the way, the
grubs are round-shaped at the outset. And the spider, when it lays its
eggs, broods over them, and in three days the eggs or grubs take
definite shape.
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