MAIN LIBRARY AGRIC. DEPT. "The Beetle panoplied ill gems and EPISODES OF INSECT LIFE. BY ACHETA DOMESTIC A, M. E. S. jtti I Kits. k • M . J-r d •Soissue forth Lhe Seasons" NEW YORK: J. S. REDFIELD, CLINTON-HALL BOSTON: B. B. MUSSEY > To thy carved acorn-bed to lie. " But ah ! the sickle ! — golden ears are cropped, Ceres and Bacchus bid good-night ; Sharp frosty fingers all your flowers have topped, And what scythes spared, winds chase off quite." DIFFEKENT nations would seem to have as opposite ideas about happiness as about beauty. The Japanese, for in- stance, have selected that half-dead liver of centuries, the tortoise, to figure their idea of perfect enjoyment, while a 2 ODE OF ANACREON". Grecian poet chose the grasshopper, so eminently a creature of life, living through every hour of its single summer, as a representative of surpassing bliss, deserving the apostrophe of " Happy insect ! what can be In happiness compared to thee ?" But know you not, says the entomologist, that these lines of Anacreon have been only by error and mistranslation assigned to the English grasshopper, at cost of the Grecian tree-hopper, to whom they properly belong. True ; but if we examine, somewhat entomologically, the well-known ode commencing with the above couplet, we shall perhaps find that each of the attributes, real or figurative, which it assigns to the classic songster of the tree, suit as well, arid some of them much bet- ter, our rustic songster of the grass. We may notice in the first place, that the tree-hopper, , calle4 by ; the' (jreeks Tettix, by the Latins Cicada, received also 'from the former the title of "Earth-born," — a title lofty i& its lowliness, because it was an implied acknowledgment from men of Athens and of Arcady of a common origin with themselves — an admission that the insect was their brother, sprung (as they fabled) from the earth, their common parent, — whence, also, they wore golden tree-hoppers in their hair. The Grecians would have learnt, however, by a little closer observation, that instead of springing full-formed from the ground, as their goddess Minerva full-armed from the paren- tal head, the infant tree-hopper was accustomed to emerge COMPARISON OF GRASS AND TREE-HOPPERS. 3 from the egg within a protecting fissure in some lofty branch — a groove formed by its mother with instinctive foresight, aided by efficient tools wherewith the Great Parent of all had furnished her. " Earth-born/' therefore, was a term by no means applicable to the tree-born Tettix ; whereas, to our grasshopper, who first emerges into life within a nest exca- vated in the ground, it is not, in a limited sense, inappropriate. To return now to our ode :* " Happy insect ! what can be In happiness compared to thee ?" This felicity, without pretending to decide on its comparative or positive amount, we may fairly suppose to be tolerably equal with the hoppers of the tree and of the grass. "Fed with nourishment divine, The dewy morning's gentle wine, Nature waits upon thee still, And thy verdant cup does fill ; 'Tis filled wherever thou dost tread, Nature's self thy Ganymede I" This may be said no less truly than prettily of both our summer minstrels, only with reservation. Both, doubtless, take a similar delight in quaffing the "morning's gentle wine," the one, from the emerald salver of a leaf, the other, from the golden chalice of a buttercup; but, as vegetable feeders, both of no mean appetite, this "nourishment divine" * As Englished by Cowley. 4 FOOD OF GRASS AND TREE-HOPPERS. would, by itself, serve them only poorly ; witness for our grasshopper, " the juicy leaf to which he clings, And gnaws it like a file ; The naked stalks which wither by Where he has been erewhile." And as for the tree-hopper, one of the uses of the gimlet- like tool with which it is provided is said to be that of tap- ping trees, after the manner of housewives' tapping birches for their sappy wine. — Apropos of feeding : a certain species of tree-hopper has been observed to display a curious kind of instinctive sagacity. These insects, which resort to the ash- trees of Sicily, are said to bore holes in the bark, and, when the manna has oozed out, to return and carry it away. Hence their name of " Hannifera," in the Linnsean system. "Thou dost dance, and thou dost sing, Happier than the happiest king !" The first line may serve, in a measure, both for Grecian Tittix and for English grasshopper. If, however, the com- parative merits of their dancing be adjudged according to the wonder rather than the grace of their performances, the "pas" we fancy, must be given for once to the British artiste, who, showing a leg of proportions far more muscular than that of the foreigner, can execute a surprising vault of his own length two hundred times repeated. On the other hand, as regards song, the singer, or, as some modern MUSIC OF THE TWO MINSTRELS. 5 critics* have disrespectfully called him, the squaller, both of ancient Greece and modern Italy, must be allowed, if power and shrillness be the criterions of excellence, to carry it hol- low over our native serenader. Be it noticed, however, by the way, that neither foreigner nor native are vocal, but, in reality — instrumental performers. Thus considered, the grasshopper is as a shepherd with his Pandean reeds, or pipe and tabor, and the tree-hopper, by all accounts, is a deafening bagpiper — his shrilly clamour audible, it is said, at a mile's distance. As for being " happier than the happiest king," the poet might have chosen, we imagine, a happier expression to ex- press the supreme felicity of his monarch of the trees,— sup- posing, that is, the amount of happiness comprised within the golden circlet of a crown to be no bigger than philosophers, and poets also, have usually considered it. Eoyalty is not, however, what it was; and now that, in company with Belle-Dame butterflies, f a king or queen can flutter in the mountain breezes, or take flights of pleasure across the seas, they need not (at least for lack of liberty) envy the verdant reign of a roving grasshopper. And yet we know not; for as majesty casts off its gilded fetters of state, the impertinent " million " would cast off, in proportion, its * Dr. Shaw, &c. t Belle-Dame, Painted Lady Butterfly (Cynthia, Oar dm). A butterfly of range most widely extended ; frequently also crossing seas. YOL. III.— 2. 6 THE INSECTS AS PKOPEIETORS. own fetters of subjection ; and now, in these autumn days of royalty, when diadems have fallen, and some, like autumn leaves, are trembling, we must perhaps say still, as was said even while monarchy was in her summer prime, " Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown !" To return now to our insect monarchs of the tree and of the grass : " All the fields which thou dost see, All the plants belong to thee ! All that summer hours produce, Fertile made with early juice ; Man for thee doth sow and plough, Farmer he, and landlord thou !" In the undisputed range of their several territories, whether of foliage or of grass, our two appropriators may be reckoned much upon a par ; though he of the tree can certainly, from his loftier position, boast of a wider and more absolute com- mand. For this reason (considering both as kings) King Tree- hopper may be also, if not the happier, the safer of the two. As for the labours of man being made subservient to the insect's use, this certainly is a distinction which belongs much more properly to the grasshopper, the " landlord," if you will, of our meadows and our corn-fields, until at midsummer, or in harvest (his position reversed) he finds himself a tenant, forcibly ejected at the point of scythe or sickle. " Thou dost innocently joy, Nor does thy luxury destroy." RAVAGES OF GRASS AND TREE-HOPPERS. 7 Here let us stop and compare, as applied to both our revellers of the summer, the dictum of poet and the evidence of naturalist. First for judgment on the tree-hopper. The insect of Ana- creon might and may possibly be of more innoxious charac- ter ; but we are told by Stoll, that the common species of Tet- lix or Cicada, what he calls " La CigaleVieilleuse" does infinite injury to trees, especially to plantations of coffee,* by boring grooves and holes in the smaller branches, both for the depo- sition of eggs and for extracting juices. Now, Mr. Grasshopper! Are thy "joy" and "luxury" the joy and luxury of perfect innocence ? On ocular evidence dost thou stand condemned. Each notch in the verdant, much more the withering blade, is as a mouth opened against thee in mute accusation. True, we hear and read but little of thy misdemeanors, while those of "the fly,"f and "the wire- worm,"^: and "the grub,"§ are trumpeted loudly forth, and figure infamously in the ' Newgate Calendar ' of the indignant farmer. Yet do we suspect, that where thou and thy merry companions most abound, even in the meads of England, the mouthfulls of the cow must lack moisture, and the crops of hay lack weight ; and when we read of thy continental fellows caught in hand-nets by the bushel, what must we think of the amount of mischief committed, or likely to have been wrought, by the combination of their jaws ! But, however * At Surinam. t Aphides of the hop, so called. I Larva of the Click Beetle. § Larva of the Cockchafer. 8 TREE AND GRASSHOPPERS ALIKE WELCOME. deep the damage they effected, direful was the penalty they had to pay ;— when boiled, and their green coats reddened, like those of lobsters or of shrimps, they were served up, a friand repasj a dainty dish, to porkers. Keturning again to our theme : " The shepherd gladly heareth thce, More harmonious than he ; Thee country hinds with gladness hear, Prophet of the ripened year !" The Grecian lyrist, and the Grecian shepherd, and the Gre- cian hind, were all accustomed, doubtless, to welcome with becoming joy fulness the earliest strains of their summer tree- hopper, which, however intrinsically harsh, would seem, in their ears, full fraught with melody, as singing of verdure present, and of golden stores to come, wherein they were each to have his portion. So with our grasshopper; — his petty larcenies overlooked or forgiven, his merry chirpings might sound, perhaps, no less cheery of promise in the ear of Eng- lish peasant, were it not, alack ! that they can meet so sel- dom with cheerful echoes in his heart. "We know not how it was with the Damons and the Phil- Uses of our golden age (if they, or it, ever existed save in fable) ; but in these, our iron times, what shepherd or what hind (of. poets we say nothing) can have an ear for chirp of merry grasshopper, or song of joyous bird, or bleat of play- ful lambkin, when the cry of starving children follows him each morning from his sorry threshold, and each evening BOTH SHORT-LIVED INSECTS. 9 meets him on return 7 and what to him, if repeated in sum- mer's blithest accents, the " prophecy " of a " ripened year," when in its harvests, save their labour, he knows he is to bear no part of fair proportion ? The poet to the tree-hopper thus concludes :— "To thee, of all things upon earth, Life is no longer than thy mirth ; Happy insect ! happy, thou Dost neither age nor winter know ; But when thou 'st drunk and danced and sung Thy fill, the summer leaves among, Sated with thy summer feast, Thou retir'st to endless rest." This will do alike for the tree and the grasshopper, since, with both, a short life and a merry one is the allotted condi- tion of being, extended only, we believe, to a few weeks of summer or early autumn. Neither they, their leaves, nor grass, nor " flowers," are much exposed, therefore, to those "frosty fingers" deprecated for the gryllus by the Cavalier Lovelace (writer of our prefatory lines), who, with true cavalier philosophy (only a variation on the Greek Epicurean), thus concludes his address to the English grasshopper : — "Poor verdant fool! and now green ice; thy joys, Large and as lasting as thy perch of grass, Bid us lay in 'gainst winter rain, and poise Their floods with an overflowing glass" Anacreon's hopper of the tree and our British hopper of the grass may now surely be allowed to share between them the former's celebrated ode, and the palm of happiness and song. 10 BRITISH CICADA. Our sketch comparative may possibly have excited in some of our readers a desire to compare for themselves the persons and the merits of our insect professors of the "joyeiise science ;" but this, with the tree-hopper, is no easy matter. The Tettix of ancient Greece, and Cicada of ancient and modern Italy, has a place indeed amongst British insects; but it has been rarely seen in England, and only, we believe, in the New Forest, whose shades, however, would not seem to have re- sounded with its song. Allied insects there nevertheless are, of English birth, — some of them pretty, some of form remark- able, but none very likely to attract attention, for lack of size and song. There is, however, one species to be seen univer- sally on hedges and in gardens all through the summer, which, in shape and make, will help to give a notion of the true Cicada. Though the person of this diminutive tree-hopper, at least before it attains maturity, is screened in a singular manner from common observation, there is scarcely an insect of more easy discovery when once we have penetrated the mystery of its white veil. Who has not noticed, about the time of the cuckoo's welcome advent, the leaves of hawthorn, hazel, woodbine — the leaves, in short, of almost every com- mon shrub and plant in hedge and garden — beginning to be besprinkled with frothy masses, which they know probably, by the familar appellation of ' cuckoo-spit ' ? Pinning on this name their faith as to its nature, few people, perhaps, have ever taken the trouble to ascertain, as to the latter, the CUCKOO-SPIT FROG-HOPPER. 11 accuracy of their notions. Let such do so now by examination 'for themselves, and they will find, imbedded in the centre of each frothy "flocon" a little green, black-eyed insect,* from whose body the froth is none other than a secretion, intended, it would seem, to cover and protect its wingless infancy. If removed by violence, this frothy veil is gradually renewed ; but as its little wearer approaches maturity it becomes curtailed and thinner. Then is our time, if we wish to acquire from this Tom Thumb of tree-hoppers some slender notion of his comparatively gigantic relative, the Grecian Singer, to pluck him, with leaf and branch, from his native tree, and set him up under a glass for inspection or exhibition. The veil of froth having shrunk to a film, we shall then discern, as each part of the insect emerges from a previous skin, first, a large, flat, frog-shaped head, with eyes set wide apart ; then a trian- gular neck or shoulder-piece, flanked by small protuberances, which might seem apologies for wings ; and, lastly, a short annulated body, pointed at the extremity. Six legs, of which the hinder pair, more strong and lengthy than their fellows, bespeak endowments of a leaping character, will complete, to all appearance, the somewhat grotesque figure of our little tree-hopper, or frog-hopper, as he is more generally called. But, though thus unveiled and thus uncased (his skin, perfect even to the legs, left behind him in silvery emptiness, like a shadow of his former self), we shall yet have to wait a little * Tettigonia, or Cicada spumaria, Cuckoo-spit Frog-hopper. 12 RAPID TRANSFORMATIONS. - longer before we can behold him altogether a thing complete. He lacks not wings, only his wings want expansion ; but, after ' about ten minutes, occupied in their unfolding from out the little shoulder-knots which yet encase them, will appear, in readiness for flight, two large transparent pinions, defended outwardly by a pair of less delicate texture. When the latter have put on their colours, most often variegated brown and white, behold a final and ample finish to the exterior of our frog-hopper, who, as soon as released from crystal durance, will afford, in an agile spring, half-flight, half-leap, an ocular demonstration of the fitness of his name.* The first change of this little leaper (that, namely, from larva to pupa) was effected, under cover of its frothy, veil ; but this transition was only a moult, and not involving, as when a caterpillar becomes a chrysalis, a change of outward form — the pupa of the frog-hopper, retaining the legs, retains also the activity of the larva ; nor in the third and final development is there, as we have just seen, much alteration of external shape, except the expansion of wings, before concealed. Such is the nature of insect transformation (so called) throughout the order Hemiptera,lo which both tree and frog-hopper be- long ; and such it is, also, in the order Orthoptera, of which the grasshopper, the cricket, and the locust are all distinguish- ed, but sometimes confounded, members. One mark of distinction in the family of Gryttidce, or true * See Vignette to ' Insect Minstrelsy,' vol. ii. GRASSHOPPERS AND LOCUSTS. 13 grasshoppers, as separate from that of locusts, consists in the length of their antennae, which are always as long, often longer than the body, while those of the Locustidce are generally shorter by one-half. In grasshoppers, and not in locusts, is also seen, sometimes, a sharp, sword-shaped instrument, pro- jecting upwards from the hinder part of the body. This appendage, peculiar to the female insect, is her tool for open- ing the earth and depositing her eggs within it; hence the French appellation of "sauterelles d sabre." One of the largest and most conspicuous, both for size and song, of our native grasshoppers, is the " Large Green ;"* with rather a sharp head, large prominent eyes, ample wings, and slender antennae as long as the body. This noble of his tribe is not an unfrequent resorter to hedges and marshy places; and, though his green armour may easily escape observation, his loud chirping can hardly fail to attract notice, especially amidst the general silence of the feathered choir, in the song- less months of August and September. Favoured, however, by this pervading stillness, together with the long antennal ears wherewith, nature has furnished him, he catches, pre- sently, the sound of an approaching footfall, and ceases the music which might betray the secret of his lurking-place. The above grandee of grasshoppers, as well as his more insignificant brethren, is in the frequent habit of filling up idle pauses between his music and his meals by a sort of seem- * Acrida viridissima. Vignette to ' Insect Minstrelsy.' 14 CANNIBAL GRASSHOPPERS. ing rumination, which, many have considered an actual chew- ing of the cud ; whereas it is opined by others, that, instead of ruminating, like Mistress Colly, the Sieur Gryllus thinks of nothing but of licking, like Miss Grimalkin, his superb whiskers (otherwise antennas) and his paws, — an operation performed, by the way, with a tongue not at all dissimilar in shape to the unruly member boasted by ourselves. Whether or not chewers of the cud, grasshoppers are, decidedly, crop- pers of the grass ; but we are assured, on good authority, that they now and then are nothing scrupulous in the variation of such Brahminian fare, by taking, as a relish, some innocent little insect of a kind differing from themselves ; still worse, that when made fellow-prisoners (hard pressed by hunger or confinement) they have been known to commit the cannibal enormity of devouring one another — an example being given wherein one of the gentler sex (which, by the way, among insects is usually the fiercer) was the doer of the deed. But, worst of all ! — horror of horrors ! — we have it on excellent evidence, how that a certain great green grasshopper (one of the sort just described) on being bottled up together with his own leg (accidentally detached), did make a hearty meal off that late portion of himself. The reverend naturalist by whom this unnatural act is recorded, performed, himself, what in some prejudiced opinions might appear a crowning feat of horror. He followed the example of the Acridophagi, and pronounced, on experience, the large green grasshopper of DOMESTIC, FIELD, AND MOLE CKICKETS. 15 England to be "an excellent condiment." One species of gryllus, called the " Carnivorous,"* is indeed (as the name imports) even more of an animal than a vegetable feeder, as divers other insects, especially caterpillars, have discovered to their cost. This, as well as the green, is a large handsome sort ; but few people, to look at the insignificant size and sober colour- ing of most of our British grasshoppers, would expect to find amongst foreigners of their tribe, Asiatic, African, and Ame- rican, some of the most splendid and curious of insects, rival- ling even the Lepidoptera in the size and colouring of their wings — of which some are ocellated, or eyed, others leaf-like, others combining under one the singularity of the leaf insect with the bright hues of an eyed butterfly. The Cricket, like the grasshopper, has long slender antennae, but is distinguished from the latter by a thick roundish head, instead of one more or less pointed. The most generally known of the Aclietidce, or Cricket family, in England, are those called the "Domestic," the " Field," and the "Mole." The singular form and habits of the last will be noticed in another place ; and we have long ago described briefly the most salient points in the character of the fire-side chirper. His country cousin of the field is, like himself, known much more generally by sound than sight ;f for, being of a shy, unsocial temper, it is not often * Acrida verrudvora. t See Vignette. 16 FIELD CRICKETS. that we can get a peep (except by stratagem) at his black, gold- striped, shining jacket, or at the more duskily-coloured and more portly person of his female partner, who wears the pacific sword of a " sauterelle d sabre" No sooner are thes6 timid little animals warned by their long antennal ears, direct- ed to all quarters like those of a hare, that footsteps are ap- proaching, than, forthwith ceasing their chirp, they pop down into their holes among the grass, at the mouths of which they usually take up their stations. After having essayed in vain to dislodge them by the spade from their subterranean citadels, it was found by Mr. White that the insertion of a straw or pliant bit of grass would probe the windings of their caverns, and bring to upper air the poor disquieted inhabitants. In a somewhat similar manner French children are said to fish for field crickets with long lines of horsehair, baited with an ant. Early in March, the field cricket, with wings as yet covered in their cases, and so enveloped till the month of April, opens his cell's mouth, and, sitting at its entrance, sings, or, to speak more correctly, plays through the summer days and nights, on to August, when all trace of him, audible and visible, disappears, with the obliteration even to the entrance to his late abode. The field cricket, like the grasshopper, is accus- tomed to fill up pauses in his music, by licking, ever and anon, his feet and whiskers with his rounded tongue, which, together with his jaws, is of course employed also, at other LOCUSTS. 17 intervals, upon something of more edible description, in the way of breakfast, dinner, or supper. With most naturalists he has the reputation of being altogether a carnivorous animal — a snapper-up of unwary flies, and a feeder upon luscious caterpillars ; others consider his staple food, as well as that of his domestic relative, to be entirely of a vegetable description ; but the fact would seem that, as with our own convenient ap- petites, the families both of grasshopper and cricket can ac- commodate their taste to circumstances. The family of Locustidce (locusts), though, as before noticed, often confounded with that of Qryllidce, (grasshoppers), are distinguishable from them by the inferior length of their antennae, which are generally shorter by half than the body ; also, by the absence in the female insect of the sword-shaped instrument employed, where given, to inter eggs within the ground."* That prince of insect destroyers, the Migratory Locust, has appeared occasionally in Britain, also in the environs of Paris, as well as in southern Europe ; but it is in Asia and Africa, chiefly in Barbary and Egypt, that the locust armies are known as mightiest of insect scourges. To give here any copied account of their destructive operations comes not within our province, any more than (happily!) within theirs our fertile isle of Britain. As regards the desolating mischief, and the ordered mode of their warfare in the East, none need want * See Vignette. 18 SPLENDID for information, when (to say nothing of the journals of modern travellers) they may turn in their Bibles to a more graphic description of the locust march than ever pen of traveller put to paper. England produces various Locustidoe, insignificant in amount of destructiveness and size — inconspicuous, also, with regard to colour; but there are certain foreign insects of the same tribe whereon nature has been most profuse of ornament ; their wings, as in some of the exotic grasshoppers before men- tioned, displaying the most splendid combinations of colour, not enamelled, as in some brilliant beetles, nor laid in mosaic, as in the butterfly, but dyed, as it were, through the trans- parent or semi-transparent substances of the wings or wing- cases, which, in this tribe, are technically called tegmina. For beautiful figures of these superb insects, we may refer our readers to the elegantly illustrated works of Stoll and of Madame Merian. We must say good-bye for the present to our grasshopper and the " Epicurean " fellows of his order, but not without a concluding word or two on their singular fitness to represent the low sensual enjoyments of us, their "earth-born" and earthy fellow-beings. If not the happiest, they are all cer- tainly among the idlest of insects, — eminently players, as dis- tinguished from those which mingle work and play together ; and if we adhere still to the naturalist's division of their tribe into its three distinct families of grasshopper, cricket, and THE GRASSHOPPER AS A SYMBOL. 19 locust, we shall perceive the closeness of their analogy to three several classes of worldly pleasure-seekers. First, there is the grasshopper, which we look upon as a playful, harmless creature; — and so, by comparison, he is. His appetite is not vitiate and depraved, like that of his house- bred cousin, Cricket, nor inordinately rapacious, like that of the wide destroyer, Locust. He and his enjoyments are simply rustic, and, as such, comparatively pure ; but still he is a mere creature of idle pleasure. His life is neither a pattern nor a type of anything beyond low animal enjoyment. He labours to no prospective end, like the ant and the bee ; al- though possessed of wings, he rises to no aerial flights, like the beetle and the butterfly. His active powers are exerted chiefly to satisfy his appetite or escape immediate danger, and, unlike those winged insects which were once but worms, he ends existence in a form but slightly altered from that in which it was begun. These dwellers in the grass are no unfitting representatives of a multitude of dwellers in the country. Of what description may these be ? It needs not to specify their usual callings or positions in society. We shall simply ask if there are not, among country residents, a large proportion of harmless, sociable, good sort of people, who are, nevertheless, mere lovers of pleasure, inasmuch as they live only for the gratification of the moment ; — persons who, dwelling in the midst of all that is fresh, and green, and 20 THE CRICKET AS A SYMBOL. beautiful, take, with the grasshopper, their animal delight therein, but, never converting the delights of nature into matter of mental store and profit, resemble not the bee, who doubles, by an internal process, the value of her floral sweets ; — people who disport themselves amidst the fields, and live upon their products, but whose thoughts, never raised to the Divine Source of the beautiful and the good, admit of no parallel with the flights of the butterfly towards the source of day, resem- bling rather the leaps from one blade to another of the heed- less grasshopper, who never cares to rise upon his ample wings into the bright blue sky above him. Come we next to the Cricket — the fire-basking, thirsty, greedy, always feeding, never-fattened u Acheta domestica" or House Cricket. . But, stay ! what are we about ? Are we not committing moral suicide ? stabbing our own reputation through the lanky sides of the little animal we have chosen for our represent- ative? Nay, not so, altogether. There are two sides of a parallel, as well as two sides of a medal ; and, if you will turn, Eeader, to our opening paper, you will find that we have placed ourselves, as might have been expected, on the brightest. We may observe, also, that our insect emblem is described as (although a domestic) a country cricket, — a partaker, as such, of. country pleasures — a resorter to sunny banks in summer, as well as glowing hearths in winter ; whereas a cricket, town- born, town-bred, and an exclusive dweller in brick and mortar, THE LOCUST AS A SYMBOL. 21 must be here understood to symbolize those lovers of plea- sure, deeper dyed than the last referred to, who are immersed in metropolitan delights. Of the town-bred cricket, artificial heat and glare make up the favourite atmosphere. Night is his day — noise his ex- pression of enjoyment. For ever seeking, and, when found, for ever feasting upon, aliment of the grossest kind, and apparently foreign to his nature, yet is he (as a quaint old writer marvels) " wondrous lank and void of superfluity." No less thirsty than voracious, he is always drinking, yet always dry, until his thirst be quenched (as often happens) by the death which overtakes him in the water-pot or milk-pan. Is not such a creature a fit image of the votaries of town dissipation? of those who convert night into day — who are for ever craving after unwholesome and unsatisfying pleasures, for ever thirsting after glittering delusive streams, which either, as with Tantalus, forsake his lips, or drown him in their soul-destroying depths ? Thirdly, and finally, we have a class of pleasure-seekers, compared with which the two last-mentioned are harmless and innocent, in about the same proportion as the grasshopper and the cricket, when compared with the all-destroying locust — and of these the locust only is the proper emblem. Let us follow rapidly a locust march of destruction ; let us see their troops in terrible array (though as yet in their wing- less youth), pressing forwards — forwards — " running like VOL. III.— 3. 22 THE LOCUST AS A SYMBOL. mighty men — climbing the wall like men of war — marching every one on his ways, and not breaking their ranks"* — entering houses — filling up streams and water-trenches, the dead bodies of their vanguard serving as bridges for the rear of their army to pass over — and putting out fires lighted in vain to oppose their progress. A temporary halt ensues ; then, in a more perfect form — still of destructiveiiess — the now winged legions rise, darkening the sun, and again forwards — forwards with the wind — rapidly pursue their course, " the land as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness, "f On, on they go, seeming to follow only the instinct of their own voracious appetites or the force of the driving wind ; but an unseen power — the power that guides alike the sweeping whirlwind and the puny insect — is con- ducting their course, and leading them to self destruction. Impelled seawards, they fall, and perish in the waters. "With only a trifling change of terms, the above description of the locusts' march would serve nearly as well to depict the destructive progress of those lovers of pleasure who stand in direct opposition to such as are lovers of God. In their ter- rible progress, singly or in congregated troops of iniquity, what obstacle can oppose their headlong course ? To attain the object of their selfish appetites, what social barrier will they not climb over? what domestic privacy will they not invade ? what pure stream of felicity will they not pollute ? * Joel, ii. 7. t Joel, u. 3. THE LOCUST AS A SYMBOL. 23 what household fires will they not extinguish, leaving deso- late hearths and homes behind ? But that Power, who by the bridle of instinct conducts the migratory locust to perish in the waves, has set bounds also to the career of the locust of society. He is not impelled irresistibly, like his insect prototype, to his own destruction ; but if he turn not from his course he is borne by the current of vice into the gulf of perdition. The analogy between locust legions and lovers of guilty pleasure holds good even after death. Cast up by the sea, and left upon the shore — a bank of corruption — the insect remains infect the air, and complete by pestilence their previous work of destruction. And so, when swept by death from the face of society, the moral locust fails not to leave behind the ill odour and pestilential influence of corrupt example. $J£ira tosfc franr* anjt ffiw ! a W PAEASITES. " a plague, The better fed, the longer kept." THERE is a certain destructive tribe of insects which may. be seen everywhere ; and they may be seen not only now, but at almost every season. The varied species of insects which compose this tribe differ widely both in magnitude and in strength ; but they are, one and all, according to their power, active, prying, and destructive. They are specious in outward form, but they are for ever watching opportunities to make breaches in the citadel of life, that they may introduce therein, sometimes a single assassin, sometimes a murderous host, PARASITIC INSECTS. 25 which sap its foundations, and bring it, sooner or later, to destruction. The above description (that of parasitic insects) applies almost as exactly to those destructive spirits whose name is Legion, which are for ever seeking the life of the soul ; generally, in the first instance (as with their insect pro- totypes) assailing it singly, but, wherever successful, making way for a multitude of vices, sprung from the original, to complete the work their parent has begun. Our business is not with parasitic vices (except our own), but with parasitic flies. The analogy, however, betwixt the two affords so striking a text of one homily of nature, that, though pointed out before,* we note it here, as a comparison to be kept in view, extended, and applied, while we trace the proceedings of a notable few amongst the most insidious of all insect destroyers of insect vitality. Ichneumon is the name generally applied to the parasitic race of which we have been speaking. There are, however, various insects of parasitic habits which are not properly ich- neumons, though the name, as signifying pryers, does not ill befit them. The original ichneumon of antiquity was, as most people are aware, no insect at all, but a little four-footed animal, a pryer after, and devoiarer of, crocodiles' eggs, on which account it was adored by the deifying people of Egypt as among their benefactors ; and amongst ours we are bound, certainly, to rank its insect namesakes, prying, as they do, * By Kirby. 26 ICHNEUMONS. for our benefit, after caterpillars in the egg, as well as in maturity. But the extensive value of ichneumons, as a check upon caterpillar depredation, may be best estimated by their num- bers, of which we may form a tolerable notion when we hear of above 1,300 species* in Europe only, some so minute " that the egg of a butterfly is sufficient for the support of two until they reach maturity ; others so large that the body of a fall grown caterpillar does not more than suffice for one."f Aristotle is said to have first applied the name of Ichneumon to the wasp ; and certain wasps there are, betwixt whom and ichneumon-flies, properly so called, there is not a pin to choose, as regards their prying parasitic habits. The ichneu- mons belong also to the same order (that of Hymenoptera) as wasps and bees ; both, spite of their relationship, among the objects of their treacherous attack. Of this distant kinship there are outward traces in the four transparent wings, and in the slight wasp-like attachment of the ichneumon's breast and abdomen, also in its prevailing colours of black and orange ; but the ichneumon, whether a dwarf or a giant of its family, has a figure of such peculiar cut as to make it easy enough, when acquainted with one, to recognise a hundred of his name. We may know them by their long narrow bodies, so convenient for prying and poking into holes and corners, as well as by their long, flexible, * " Naturalist's Library." f Kirby and Spence, Introduction. ICHNEUMON BORERS. 27 jointed horns, so continually on the vibrate as to have pro- cured for their possessors the appellation Musicce vibrantes. With these organs* (supposed to combine the uses of feelers and of ears) our pryers are to be seen for ever exploring, both by touch and hearing, the places and the living subjects best suited to receive their eggs. Cuckoo-flies is another appellation by which ichneumons are distinguished, because, like the cuckoo, they are accus- tomed, lazily, intrusively, dishonestly, and cruelly, to deposit their eggs in stranger nests — sometimes within stranger egg- shells— sometimes within the bodies of stranger grubs and caterpillars, either in their infancy or when they have attained their growth. For execution of these her nefarious practices, the female ichneumon is provided with a very conspicuous instrument, tail-like, seeming composed sometimes of one, sometimes of three divergent hairs, but consisting, in fact, of a single ovipositor, or borer, with a sheath longitudinally divided and opening like a pair of compasses. The nicest adaptation marks this curious instrument, which, according to the different species and habits of its possessor, is employed to pierce, sometimes only an exposed egg, sometimes the skin of a grub, caterpillar, or chrysalis, and sometimes through defences strong and deep, coverings of silk, or wood, or clay ; and, according to these varied requisitions, it is shorter or longer, thinner or thicker, stiffer or more pliant. In one large * Antennae. 28 NESTS OF MASON WASPS. and common ichneumon,* easily known by her black body, red legs, and smoke-coloured wings, spotted at the base, this tail-like appendage reaches unto inches, sometimes nearly three — a length, extreme, as longer than the body, but not super- fluous, seeing that its office is often to penetrate, and that through a barrier of clay, down to the very bottom of deep nest-holes in walls or sand-banks, those, usually, of the mason wasp, wherein, to the destruction of the hapless nestling, its rightful occupant, it leaves behind the fatal deposit of a para- sitic egg. If the maternal mason has, according to custom, provisioned her nest, she has only, in providing for her offspring, furnished a ready store for its cuckoo-like destroyer. In thus invading the nursery -for tress of a marauding, life-destroying wasp, we may view the proceedings of this long-tailed ichneumon, how- ever cruel, with some indulgence on account of their retribu- tive character. Not so, however, with the doings (to all ap- pearance, barbarous in the extreme) of various other species towards the quiet, peaceful caterpillar, — insect-ward, a most innocent member of society. We know, however, only too well, that in its relation to ourselves the caterpillar holds a somewhat different position, and, having acknowledged already the services of Mother Ichneumon in reduction of the cater- pillar crew, we must not quarrel, we suppose, with her mode of effecting the desirable end. Let us see now — though no * Plmpla manifcstztw. A LIVING MARTYRDOM. 29 very pleasant thing to look upon or think of — the way in which she often goes to work upon a poor devoted devourer of the leaves of cabbage, one of the commonest of all caterpil- lars, whence spring one of the commonest of all butterflies — the Large White* of the garden. While stuffing its variegated doublet of green, black, and yellow, with vegetable pulp, a small ichneumon, a little four- winged imp, with black body and yellow legs, pounces on its back, nourishes her tremendous egg-inserting weapon, and, seeking therewith' the caterpillar's most vulnerable part, plunges it, now here, now there, between its rings, leaving, with every puncture, a " thorn in the flesh," soon to be the living prey of a brood of devourers. The victim of this infliction bears all with a most astonishing degree of quietude ; and, without any outward signs of the visitation which has befallen it, continues to discuss its cab- bage with apparently the same relish as before, and utterly unconscious that, while seeming to feed only itself, it is in real- ity supporting the surreptitious progeny which Mother Ich- neumon has so cunningly committed to its involuntary keeping. Thus strangely supported, the infant or grub cuckoo-flies attain their growth, and so, to all appearance, does their unfortunate fosterer, the caterpillar. According to instinctive custom, the latter, then deserting its cabbage, betakes itself, perhaps in July or August, to the sheltering coping of a garden wall, or cross-bar of a paling; places where, in the * Pontia Brassicce. 30 PAEASITIC COCOONS. common course of nature, it is accustomed to discard the caterpillar and put on the chrysalis form. But Nature has, in this case, been overruled (we may be certain, as always, by the wise permission of her Great Master), the tiny ichneumon having been employed as the agent of her defeat. We have happened, perhaps, to see a caterpillar, visited as just described, ascend its wall or paling. In a day or two, perhaps in a few hours, we see it again, still a caterpillar, and alive, but reduced almost to an empty skin, while heaped around it is a mass of little oval cocoons of yellow silk. By some people these might be taken for the caterpillar's eggs ; by others, for a specimen of its own spinning ; and they might suppose, moreover, that it had worked so hard as well-nigh to work itself to death ; but no such thing — the yellow silken cases have been spun by the little brood of parasites, which, having simultaneously deserted the poor shrunken body of their fosterer, have thus shrouded themselves for safe attain- ment of the winged perfection which she (poor blighted pro- mise of a butterfly !) is never to attain. One most noteworthy circumstance in the above and other parasitic infestations of a similar kind, is the avoidance, by the ichneumon devourers, of every vital part of the caterpillar devoured, whose living juices are requisite for their support. Incipient moths, as well as butterflies, are continually being defrauded of their winged estate through the agency of ichneu- mon, and sometimes other parasites. ICHNEUMONS IN CHRYSALIDES. 31 The black and yellow " Magpie "* 'of the currant, while in the form of a black and yellow caterpillar, is often to be seen in the same wasted predicament as its fellow-sufferer of the cabbage, and, like that, surrounded by the silken cocoons of its destroyers: or, supposing it arrived at its second stage, that of a black and yellow chrysalis, its progress is equally liable to be arrested ere it attains its third. Such a chrysalis we have sometimes gathered with the cur- rant or plum leaves, to the back of which they are often, in July, to be found attached by a slight silken net-work. Our object in thus plucking them from their native trees has been to watch them through the curious process of emergement ; but, lo ! when we have been looking for a magpie moth, curious to behold, though seen before, the gradual expansion of her large white wings, with the gradual coming out of their black and yellow speckles, nothing has come out at all but an ugly black devil of an ichneumon-fly. We are not sure whether, in the above instance, the " Mag- pie's " destroyer first attacked it while a caterpillar, or after it became a chrysalis. Numerous, at all events, are the various aurelian covers which serve only to conceal, perhaps one, perhaps an assemblage of surreptitious lurkers of ichneumon form, or, if differing in shape, of ichneumon habits. During last August, we had six of the golden chrysalides of the little tortoise-shell butterfly all suspended to a cluster of * Abraxus grossulariata. 32 A WARNING TO TYRO COLLECTORS. nettles which we had planted in a flower-pot for the provision of their caterpillars. From two of the number appeared duly, in all their bright array of black and scarlet, blue and gold, the insects to be naturally expected ; from the third issued a brood of small ichneumons. Of the fourth, fifth, and sixth, the "gold coats " assumed a questionable blackness, and being hence led to examine how they might be filled, we found, in- stead of the wrinkled wings and folded members of butterfly occupants, three little brown barrels within each, which we presently recognised for the pupas of two-winged flies ; and from these accordingly came forth nine as ordinary -looking little animals of that description as were ever set eyes on buz- zing in a window, — distinguished, however, by their parasitic origin from the household herd. We see by the above instances, which might be multiplied by hundreds, how precarious the prospects not only of the fature moth or butterfly, but also of the expectant collector ; and let not the tyro in their pursuit vainly flatter himself that, because the chrysalides he possesses may have been exhumed from earth, and are still buried in his boxes, or are enshrouded in silk, or encased in wood, they are slumbering in safety to adorn his cabinet ; for vain, in numerous instances, will prove the caterpillar's ingenuity, and labour, and instinctive care, and vain, also, the collector's every precaution to guard against the intrusions, somehow and at some time effected, of the insidious race Ichneumon. ICHNEUMONS OF ALL SIZES. 33 Even with a group of insect eggs, guard them as we may, we can never be certain that some parasitic occupant has not possessed them before ourselves. Kirby tells us of ichneu- mons so minute as to occupy, between two, one egg of a but- terfly ; and Bonnet speaks of the same confined receptacle as affording board and lodging to several of these tiny inter- lopers. When told that out of sixty eggs of the emperor moth, not one was found exempt from their intrusion, we may imagine the large proportion of caterpillars nipped in the embryo, as well as in their growth, by parasitic enemies. Amongst these, all are subject to attack by similar destroyers of various size proportioned to the bulk of their victims, from the minute grub of the leaf-miner, to the bulky caterpillar of a puss-moth or a sphinx ; and commensurate with this wide extent of damage to the caterpillar crew, is, of course, the benefit to the vegetable world and the human race, through these parasitic agents, which, while emblems of evil, are thus made instruments of good. Though the gay and beautiful order Lepidoptera thus holds a dangerous pre-eminence as an object of parasitic attack, it is not alone the butterfly and moth which are often robbed by the same agency of their last estate and brightest inheritance. We have seen already how a common ichneumon, with a tail-like ovipositor of prodigious length, is accustomed to assail, in the deep nest-hole of a mason wasp, the infant pro- geny of an insect of its own order, that of Hymenoptera / and 34 THE GOLDEN WASP. we shall briefly notice, now, the invasion of an infant asylum of somewhat similar construction, wherein, however, a parasi- tic wasp is the aggressor, and a solitary carpenter bee the ma- ternal guardian, whose cares are often rendered nugatory by its cunning. The waspish lady (in this case the aggressor) is, however, we can tell you, Reader, a wasp of no common order ; but one which, for beauty and splendour, has never met her match in the waspish world, nor her superior, perhaps, in the whole world of British insects. You must surely have sometimes seen her, a perfect living jewel as she is! with head, breast, and shoulders all thickly set with emeralds, outshone only by the ruby-red and burnished gold which mingle in her fiery tail. You must have seen, and certainly have noted, such a notable as this, when alighted, according to her wont, in the hottest summer sunshine, upon posts and railings ; but you may not know her by the names either of " Chrysis," of " Golden Wasp," or of " Ruby-tail Fly;" or even if you know her names, you may not be acquainted with her business — her business, that is, upon posts and railings. Never suppose that she so often visits these uninviting, flowerless, dry localities, merely to bask in the sultry sunbeams, or challenge them to outshine her golden splendour. No; this creature, in her glorious array, is bent on glorious mischief. You may, one day, happen to perceive, on the same post as that chosen for her station by the golden wasp, a hole bored in the wood, and A WILY PARASITE. 35 you may also possibly see its borer, in the shape of a little bee mother, of the carpenter craft, who with infinite pains and labour has chiselled out with her jaws a nursery tunnel, di- vided it into cells, and stored it with provision for her young. But, ah! that bejewelled ruby -tailed pryer has also watched her in her tender labours, which she will take good care to convert, if possible, to the benefit of her own waspish off- spring. Only behold her (like a fiend in angel's guise) lurk- ing to effect her purpose. She has deserted her sunny post, and hides her glittering form under the covert of some neigh- bouring leaves, — her glowing eyes fixed, though, all the while, upon the nest of her humble cousin Bee. She has seen her return, her thighs laden with the golden pollen which she has been collecting for her nestlings' store ; but still, it wants completion, and she (poor busy mother !) meaning shortly to return, repairs once more to a neighbouring garden, to load herself again with sweet provision. But no sooner does she issue from her nest-hole, than the wily parasite darts from be- hind her screen, her dazzling body and glittering wings flash for a moment in the sun, then suddenly are lost in the dark per- foration of the tunnelled bee's nest. Wo then to its hapless tenants ! They may feast awhile upon the sweets provided by maternal care ; but they will feast and fatten only to be de- voured by a grub of the golden wasp, who, in her visit to their nest (fatal as it is brief), has deposited an egg, or eggs, from whence will issue all this murderous mischief. 36 PREY OF PARASITES. While the infant bee, deep in its perforated cell, is exposed to dangers such as these, the embryo gall-fly sleeps not a whit more safely within its pulpy or woody globe, pierced, often, to the centre, by the egg-inserting instrument of a gall ichneu- mon. Even the little aphis, or plant-louse, cannot escape, through its minuteness, from the punctures of an ichneumon parasite proportioned to itself; and the aphides' arch-enemy, the lady-bird, while yet an aphis-eating larva, is preyed upon in turn by a parasitic consumer. The student of insect economy will meet continually with resembling instances of parasitic usurpation, at which, till ac- quainted with its true character, he may often be disposed to wonder almost as much as the early naturalists. Some of these, not a little puzzled by such strange procedures as that of an ichneumon from the egg of a butterfly, or from the nut or apple of a gall-fly, attributed the mystery, for which they wanted a key, to the occasional insufficiency of Dame Nature's producing power, causing her, at times, when she had planned a magnificent butterfly, to turn out only a vulgar fly. All the parasites above noticed, if not ichneumons, are, be it remembered, flies — parasitic flies, — either four- winged, of the order Hymenoptera, or two-winged, of the order Diptera. They are all, also, when arrived as perfect insects at their winged estate, livers upon vegetable food, — for themselves, usually, mere harmless sippers of honey. Only in the parental charac- ter are their cruel and parasitic propensities developed, to be PARASITES ON PERFECT INSECTS. 37 exercised either on living subjects, affording at once a cover for their eggs and nourishment for their young, or else upon those stranger nests wherein is to be found both shelter and a store of living prey suitable for the same purposes. The suf- ferers in these cases are still also immature, being still either in the first or second stage of existence. But there are certain other insect parasites (chiefly wingless, and of the order Aptera) which are parasitic entirely for them- selves,— perfect insects which infest others, perfect also. Of such are the Acari, or mites, with which all, who have ever noticed the commonest of black beetles, must have sometimes seen them covered, as well as their pretty cousins the gold green chafers of the rose. The humble bee is another not un- frequent sufferer from somewhat similar infestation, which is said, moreover, to rob, occasionally, the merry grasshopper of his juices, if not of his enjoyment. These, however, with other parasitic tormentors whose visitations extend to bird, and beast, and man, may be looked on more properly as a part of the vermin crew, not now the subject of our notice. Enough, too, of insect preying upon insect. But before we have done with parasites altogether, we must say a concluding word or two of insects as now and then preyed upon by plants. We are told by physiological botanists, that plants with few and small leaves depend chiefly for their food upon the soil ; those with many and large ones, more upon the at- mosphere ; and in the Chinese air-plant we have the phenome- 38 VEGETABLE PAKASITES. non of a vegetable living entirely on air. There are also vegetable parasites (such as the dodder, &c.) which are sup- ported solely at the expense of other plants. But who would expect to find in a vegetable an appropriator of animal food, and that from an insect subject? Yet such would seem to be the case with several Cryptogam ous, or mushroom-like plants, which have been found growing, in Guadaloupe, on wasps,* also upon hawk-moths and chafers.f These vegetable para- sites begin, it is said, their destructive operations on the bodies of the living animals, and continue them, like the grubs of ichneumons, till their victims' death. In our own country, bees and humble-bees are supposed, sometimes, to have a species of mucor, or other fungi, growing on them,, though it is thought, by some, that the adhering stamina of flowers may have been mistaken for such parasitic sprouts. By Mr. Kirby these vegetable parasites are con- sidered to arise from moisture, which, accumulating on the insect while in a state of torpidity, may afford thus a bed or seed-plot for these mushroom-like excrescences of a diseased nature. We began our sketch of parasitic insects by pointing to their moral analogy with parasitic vices ; and now, having traced, though slightly, the round of their vampyre-like pro- ceedings, we will only take notice of one other resembling feature, thereby suggested, which will serve, at least, to make * By M. Kicard. f By Dr. Mitchell. INDOLENCE THE PARASITIC SOIL. 39 >th ends of our subject meet. What are the prevailing characteristics of those animate receptacles which we have seen to be chiefly selected by the prying ichneumon for the fatal intrusion of her eggs ? What but sensuality and inertia ? as exemplified in the crawling devouring caterpillar or the dormant chrysalis. And do not these creatures represent exactly the very states, the moral soils, wherein the seeds of vice are usually introduced by the sower of evil ? Thus does the Book of Nature teach us, in living characters, what our books of copy repeat so often, that " Idleness is the root of all evil," or, in the words of an old moralist, " The broom that sweepeth clean all good thoughts owte of the howse of the mynde, making it fitt to receave the seven devills."* * ' Nugse Antiquse.' \ •