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AN

INTRODUCTION

TO

ENTOMOLOGY:

OR

ELEMENTS

OF THE

NATURAL HISTORY OF INSECTS

WITH PLATES.

By WILLIAM KIRP^^ M.A. F.R. and L.S.

BECTOR OF BARHAJI,
AND

WILLIAM SPENCE, Esq. F.L.S.

FOURTH edition:
VOL. L

LONDON:

I'RIXTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN,
PATERNOSTER ROW.

1822.

PRINTED BY R. AKD A. TAYLOR,
SHOE LANE, LONDOV.

TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

SIR JOSEPH BANKS, BARONET,

ONE OF HIS majesty's MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY

, COUNCIL,

KNIGHT GRAND CROSS OF THE ORDER OF THE BATH,

PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY, ETC.

WHOSE UNRIVALLED LIBRARY AND

PERSONAL COMMUNICATIONS

HAVE FURNISHED MUCH OF THE MOST INTERESTING

MATTER THAT IT CONTAINS,

THE FOLLOWING WORK,

IN WHICH AN ATTEMPT IS MADE TO COPY

HIS ILLUSTRIOUS EXAMPLE,

BY POINTING OUT THE CONNEXION THAT EXISTS

BETWEEN NATURAL SCIENCE, AND AGRICULTURE,

AND THE ARTS,

IS, WITH HIS PERMISSION,

MOST GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED

BY HIS MOST OBLIGED -

AND OBEDIENT SERVANTS,

THE AUTHORS.

^--. ^■**?.!S.

PREFACE.

One principal cause of the little attention paid
to Entomology in this country, has doubtless been
the ridicule so often thrown upon the science.
The botanist, sheltered now by the sanction of
fashion, as formerly by the prescriptive union of
his study with medicine, may dedicate his hours
to mosses and lichens without reproach ; but in
tlie minds of most men, the learned as well as
the vulgar, the idea of the trifling nature of his
pursuit is so strongly associated with that of the
diminutive size of its objects, that an eniomolo-
gist is synonymous with every thing futile and
childish. Now, when so many other roads to
fame and distinction are open, when a man has
merely to avow himself a botanist, a mineralogist,
or a chemist — a student of classical literature or
of political economy — to ensure attention and re-
spect, there are evidently no great attractions to
lead him to a science Avhich in nine companies
out often with which he may associate promises

Vi PREFACE.

to signalize him only as an object of pity or
contempt. Even if be bave no other aim than
self-gratification^ yet '' the sternest stoic of us
all wishes at least for some one to enter into bis
views and feelings^ and confirm him in the opi-
nion which he entertains of himself:" but how
can be look for sympathy in a pursuit unknown
to the worldj except as indicative of littleness of
mind }

Yet such are the genuine charms of this branch
of the study of nature^ that here as well as on the
continent^ where^ from being equally slighted,,
Entomology now divides the empire with her
sister Botany^ this obstacle would not have been
sufficient to deter numbers from the study^ bad
not another more powerful impediment existed —
the want of a popular and comprehensive Intro-
duction to the science. While elementary books
on Botany have been multiplied among-st us with-
out end and in every shape^ Curtis's translation of
the Fundamenta jEw^omo/og?^, published in 1772;
Yeats's Institutions of Entomologi/ , which ap-
peared the year after; and Barbut's Genera Insec-
torum, which came out in 1781 — the two former
in too unattractive, and the latter in too expen-
sive a form for g-eneral readers — are the only
works professedly devoted to this object, which
the English language can boast.

PREFACE. Vii

Convinced that this was the chief obstacle to
the spread of Entomology in Britain, the authors
of the present work resolved to do what was in
their power to remove it, and to introduce their
countrvmen (o a mine of pleasure, new, bound-
less, and inexhaustible, and which, to ju{i<^e from
their own experience — formed in no contracted
licld of comparison — they can recommend as pos-
sessing- advantages and attractions equal to those
licld forth by most other branches of human
learning.

The next question was, in what way they should
attempt to accomplish this intention. If they had
contented themselves with the first suggestion that
presented itself, and merely given a translation
of one of the many Introductions to Entomology
extant in Latin, German, and French, addina-
only a few obvious improvements, their task would
have been very easy ; but the slightest examina-
tion showed that, in thus proceeding, they would
have stopped far short of the goal which they
were desirous of reaching. — In the teclniical de-
partment of the science they found much confu-
sion, and numerous errors and imperfections —
the same name sometimes applied to parts anato-
mically quite different, and different names to
parts essentially the same, while others of primary
importance w ere without any name at all. And

VIU PREFACE.

with reference to the anatomy and physiology of
insectSj they could no where meet with a full
and accurate generalization of the various facts
connected with these subjects^ scattered here and
there in the pages of the authors who have stu-
died them.

They therefore resolved to begin^ in some mea-
sure, de novo- — to institute a rigorous revision of
the terms employed, making such additions and
improvements as might seem to be called for ;
and to attempt a more complete and connected
account of the existing discoveries respecting the
anatomical and physiological departments of the
science than has yet been given to the world : —
and to these two points their plan at the outset
v/as limited.

It soon, however, occurred to them, that it
would be of little use to write a book which no
one would peruse ; and that in the present age of
love for light reading, there could not be much
hope of leading students to the dry abstractions
of the science, unless they were conducted through
the attractive portal of the economy and natural
history of its objects. To this department, there-
fore, they resolved to devote the first and most con-
siderable portion of their intended work, bringing
into one point of view, under distinct heads, the
most interesting discoveries of Reaumur, DeGeer,

PREFACK. IX

Bonnet, Lyonet^ the llubers, &c., as well as their
own individual observations, relativeto thenoxious
and beneficial properties of insects; their affection
for their young- ; their food, and modes of obtain-
ing it; tlieir habitations ; societies ; &c. &c. : and
they were the more induced to adopt this plan,
from the consideration, that, though many of the
most striking of these facts have before been pre-
sented to the English reader, a great proportion
are unknown to him ; and that no similar gene-
ralization (if a slight attempt towards it in Smel-
lie's Philosophi/ of Natural Ilistori/, and a confes-
sedly imperfect one in Latreille's Ilistoire Natu-
rclle dcs Crusiaccs et des Insectes be excepted)
has ever been attempted in any language. — Thus
the entire work would be strictly on the plan of the
Philosophia Entojuologica of Fabricius, only giv-
ing a much greater extent to the Q^conomia and
Usus, and adverting to these in the first place in-
stead of in the last.

The epistolary form was adopted, not certainly
from any idea of their style being particularly
suited to a mode of writing so difficult to keep
from running into incongruities ; but simply be-
cause this form admitted of digressions and allu-
sions called for in a popular work, but which
might have seemed misplaced in a stricter kind
of composition ; — because it is better suited to

X PREFACE.

convey those practical directions^ which in sonje
branches of the pursuit the student requires ; —
and lastl}^, because by this form^ the objection
ao-ainst speaking- of the manners and economy of
insects before entering- upon the defniition of
them, and explaining- the terms of the science — a
retrograde course, Avhich they have chosen from
their desire to present the most alhiring- side of
the science first — is in great measure, if not
wholly, obviated.

Such is the plan which the authors chalked out
for themselves — a plan whicli in the execution
they have found so much more extensive than
they calculated upon, that, could they have fore-
seen the piles of volumes through which it has
entailed upon them the labour of wading;, often
to glean scarcely more than a single fact — the
numerous anatomical and technological investi-
g-ations which it has called for — and the long- cor-
respondence, almost as bulky as the entire work,
unavoidably rendered necessary by the distant
residence of the parties — they would have shrunk
from an undertaking-, of which the profit, if by
g-reat chance there should be any, could not be
expected to repay even the cost of books required
in it, and from which any fame must necessarily
be confined to a very limited circle. But having
entered upon it_, they have persevered ; and if

PREFACE, XI

Ihey succeed in their i;r;nul aim, that of makino-
converts aniong'st their countrymen to a study
equally calculated lor promoting- the glory of
God and the delight and profit of man, they will
not deem the labour of tlie leisure hours of six
years ill bestowed.

And here it may be proper to observe, that one
of their first and favourite objects has been to di-
rect the attention of their readers '' from nature
up to nature's Cod." For, when they reflected
upon the fatal use which has too often been made
of Natural History, and that from the very works
and wonders of God, some philosophists, by an
unaccountable perversion of intellect, have at-
tempted to derive arguments either against his
being and providence, or against the Religion
revealed in the Holy Scriptures, they conceived
they might render some service to the most im-
portant interests of mankind^ by showing how
every department of the science they recommend
illustrates the great truths of Religion, and proves
that the doctrines of the Word of God, instead of
being contradicted^ are triumphantly confirmed
by his Works.

" To see all things in God" has been accounted
one of the peculiar privileges of a future state ;
and in this present life, '' to see God in all things/*
in the mirror of the creation to behold and adore

Xll PREFACE.

the reflected glory of the Creator, is no mean at-
tainment ; and it possesses this advantage, that
thus we sanctify our pursuits, and^ instead of
loving" the creatures for themselves, are led by
the survey of them and their instincts to the love
of Him who made and endowed them.

Of their performance of the first part of their
plan, in which there is the least room, for origi-
nality, it is only necessary for the authors to say
that they have done their best to make it as com-
prehensive, as interesting, and as useful as pos-
sible : but it is requisite to enter somewhat more
fully into what has been attempted in the anato-
mical, physiological, and technical parts of the
work.

As far as respects the general physiology and
interior anatomy of insects, they have done little
more than bring together and combine the obser-
vations of the naturalists who have attended to
these branches of the science : but the exterior
anatomy they have examined for themselves
through the whole class, and, they trust, not
without some new light being thrown upon the
subject ; particularly by pointing out and giving
names to many parts never before noticed.

In the Terminologij, or what, to avoid the bar-
barism of a word compounded of Latin and Greek,
they would beg to call the Orismologij of the sci-

PREFACE. XUI

encctlicy have endeavoured to introduce througli-
out a greater degree of precision and concinnity —
dividing' it into gfcwerrt/ and partial Orismolog-y ;
— under the former head defining- such terms as
relate to Substance, Resistance, Densitj/, Propor-
tion, Figure, Form, Superficies, (under vvliich are
introduced Sculpture, Clothing, Colour, &c. )
Margin, 'Termination, Incision, Ramification,
Division, Direction, Situation, Connection, Arms,
&c. ; and under the latter those that relate to the
body and its parts and members^ considered in its
great subdivisions oi Head, Trunk, and Abdomen.
In short, they may rest their claim of at least aiming-
at considerable improvement in this department
upon the g-reat number of new terms, and altera-
tions of old ones, which they have introduced — in
external Anatomy alone falling- little short of 150.
If it should be thought by any one that they have
made too many changes, they would remind him
of the advice of Bergman to Morveau, when re-
forming the nomenclature of Chemistry, the
soundness of which Du^ald Stewart has reco":-
nised — '^' Ne fuites grace a aucune denomination
impropre. Ceux qid savent dejd, entendront tou-
jours ; ceux qui ne savent pas encore, entendront
plutot. "

Throughout the whole publication, wherever
any fact of importance not depending on their

XIV PREFACE.

own authority is mentioned^ a reference to the
source whence it has been derived is generally
g-iven ; so that, if the work should have no other
value, it will possess that of saving- much trouble
to future inquirers, by serving as an index to di-
rect them in their researches.

The authors are perfectly sensible that^ not-
withstandiiig all their care and pains, many im-
perfections will unavoidably remain in theii* work.
There is no science to which the adage. Dies diem
docet, is more strikingly applicable than to Natu-
ral History, New discoveries are daily made^ and
will be made, it is probable, to the end of time ;
so that whoever flatters himself that he can pro-
duce a perfect work in this department will be
miserably disappointed. The utmost that can
reasonably be expected from naturalists is to keep
pace with the progress of knowledge, and this
the authors have used their best diligence to ac-
complish. Every new year since they took the
subject in hand up to the very time when the first
sheets were sent to the press, numerous correc-
tions and alterations have suggested themselves ;
and thus they are persuaded it would be were
they to double the period of delay prescribed by
Horace. But Poetry and Natural History are on
a different footing ; and though an author can
plead little excuse for giving his verses to the

PREFACE. XV

world while lie sees it possible (o polish them to
higher excellence, tlie naturalist, if he wishes to
pnnnotethe extension of his science, must be con-
tent to submit his performances to the public dis-
fii;-nred by numerous imperfections.

In the introductory letter sevcriil of the adyan-
tages to be derived from the study of Entomology
are pointed out ; but there is one, which, though
it could not well have been insisted upon in that
place, is too imj)ortant to be passed over without
notice — >its value in tiic education of youth.

All modern writers on this momentous subject
unite in recommending* in tliis view. Natural His-
tory : and if ''the quality of accurate discrimi-
nation— the ready perception of resemblances
amongst diversities, and still more the quick and
accurate perception of diversity in the midst of
resemblances — constitutes one of the most im-
portant operations of the understanding ; if it be
indeed the foundation of clear ideas, and the
acquisition of whatever can be truly called know-
ledge depends most materially on the possession
of it : — if '' the best logic be that which teaches
us to suspend our judgements ;" and ''the art of
seeing, so useful, so universal, and yet so uncom-
moUj be one of the most valuable a man can pos-
sess,"— there can be no doubtof the judiciousness
of their advice. Now of all the branches of Na-

XVI PREFACE.

tural History, Entomology is unquestionably the
best fitted for thus disciplining- the mind of youth;
and simply from these circumstances, that its ob-
jects have life, are gifted with surprising instincts
admirably calculated to attract youthful attention,
and are to be met with every where. It is not
meant to undervalue the good effects of the study
of Botany or Mineralogy : but it is self-evident
that nothing inanimate can excite such interest in
the mind of a young person as beings endowed
with vitality, exercising their powers and facul-
ties in so singular a way ; which, as Reaumur ob-
serves, are not only alive themselves, but confer
animation upon the leaves, fruits, and flowers
that they inhabit ; which every walk offers to
view ; and on which new observations may be
made without end.

Besides these advantages, no study affords a
fairer opportunity of leading the young mind by
a natural and pleasing path to the great truths of
Religion, and of impressing it with the most
lively ideas of the power, wisdom, and goodness
of the Creator.

Not that it is recommended to make children
collectors of insects, nor that young people, to
the neglect of more important duties and pursuits^
should generally become professed Entomolo-
gists ; but, if the former be familiarized with

PREFACE. Xvii

their names, manners^ and economy, and the lat-
ter initiated into their classification, it will be an
excellent method of strengthening- their habits of
observation, attention, and memory, equal per-
haps, in tills respect, to any other mental exercise :
and then, like Major Gyllenhal, who studied En-
tomology under Thunberg about 1770, and after
an interval of twenty years devoted to the service
of his country, resumed his favourite pursuit with
all the ardour of youth, and is at this time giving
to the world a description of the insects of Swe-
den invaluable for its accuracy and completeness
— they would be provided in their old age with
an object capable not merely of keeping off that
tedium vit^ so often inseparable from the relin-
quishment of active life, but of supplying an un-
failing fund of innocent amusement, an incentive
to exercise, and consequently no mean degree of
health and enjoyment.

Some, who, with an ingenious author *, regard
as superfluous all pains to show the utility of Na-
tural History in reference to the common pur-
poses of life, asking " if it be not enough to open
a source of copious and cheap amusement, which
tends to harmonize the mind, and elevate it to
worthy conceptions of nature and its Author ?

* Dr. Aikiii.
VOL. I. b

XVIU PREFACE,

if a greater blessing to a man can be offered than
happiness at an easy rate unalloyed by any de-
basing mixture ? " — may think the earnestness dis-
played on this headj and the length which has
been gone in refuting objections, needless. But
Entomology is so peculiarly circumstanced, that
without removing these obstacles, there could be
no hope of winning votaries to the pursuit. Pliny
felt the necessity of following this course in the
outset of his book which treats on insects, and a
similar one has been originally called for in intro-
ducing the study even to those countries where
the science is now most honoured. In France,
Reaumur, in each of the successive volumes of his
immortal work, found it essential to seize every
opportunity of showing that the study of insects
is not a frivolous amusement, nor devoid of uti-
lity, as his countrymen conceived it ; and in Ger-
many Sulzer had to traverse the same road, telling
us, in proof of the necessity of this procedure,
that on showing his works on insects with their
plates to two very sensible men, one commended
him for employing his leisure hours in preparing
prints that would amuse children and keep them
out of mischief, and the other admitted that they
might furnish very pretty patterns for ladies'
aprons ! And though in this country things are
not now quite so bad as they were when Lady

PREFACE. Xix

Glanville's will was attempted to be set aside on
the ground of lunacy, evinced by no other act
than her fondness for collecting- insects, and Ray
had to a})pcar at Exeter on the trial as a witness
of her sanity *, yet notliing less than line upon
line can be expected to eradicate the deep-rooted
prejudices which prevail on this subject. " Old
impressions/' as Reaumur has well observed,
'' are with difficulty elVaced. They are weaken-
ed, they appear unjust even to those who feel
them, at the moment they are attacked by argu-
ments which are unanswerable ; but the next in-
stant the proofs are forgotten, and the perverse
association resumes its empire."

The authors do not know that any curiosity
will be excited to ascertain what share has been
contributed to the work by each of them ; but if
there should, it is a curiosity they must be ex-
cused from gratifying. United in the bonds of a
friendship, which, thougli they have to thank
Entomology for giving birth to it, is founded
upon a more solid basis than mere community of
scientific pursuits, they wish that, whether blame
or praise is the fate of their labours, it may be
jointly awarded. All that they think necessary to
state is, that the composition of each of the dif-

* Sco Harris's AurcUan under Papilio Ciiixiu.
h2

XX PREFACE.

ferent departments of the work has been, as
nearly as possible, divided between them ; — that
though the letter^ or series of letters, on any par-
ticular subject, has been usually undertaken by
one,, some of the facts and illustrations have ge-
nerally been supplied by the other, and there are
a few to which they have jointly contributed ; —
and that, throughout, the facts for which no
other authority is quoted, are to be considered as
resting upon that of one or other of the authors,
but not always of him, who, from local allusions,
may be conceived the writer of the letter in which
they-are introduced, as the matter furnished by
each to the letters of the other must necessarily
be given in the person of the supposed writer.

In acknowledging their obligations to their
friends, the first place is due to Simon Wilkin,
Esq. of Costessey near Norwich, to whose libe-
rality they are indebted for the numerous plates
wliich illustrate and adorn the work ; the whole
of which have been drawn and engraved by
his artist Mr. John Curtis, whose intimate ac-
quaintance with the subject has enabled him to
give to the figures an accuracy which they could
not have received from one less conversant with
the science. Nor is the reader less under obliga-
tion to Mr. Wilkius liberality than the authors.

PREFACE. XXI

wIjo^ if the drawings, &c. had been to be paid
for, must necessarily have contented themselves
\vith jjivinji" a much smaller number.

DO •

To Alexander MacLeay, Esq. they are un-
der particular obligations, for the warm inter-
est he has all along taken in the work, the judi-
cious advice he has on many occasions given,
the free access in which he has indulged the
authors to his unrivalled cabinet and well-stored
library, and the numerous other attentions and
accommodations by which he has materially as-
sisted them in its progress.

To the other friends who have kindly aided
them in this undertaking in any way, they beg
here to ofTer their best thanks.

It now only remains that they should assign
tiicir reasons for sending the work into the world,
contrary to their original intentions, in an imper-
fect state, by the publication of the first volume
only. One inducement to this course has been the
occurrence of unexpected interruptions, which,
though tlie bulk of the work has been long writ-
ten, have hitherto precluded the completion of the
entire plan : but their principal reason has been
the wish to render the physiological and anatomi-
cal departments more perfect by the consultation
of various continental works published within the
last six or eight years, now for the first time ac-

XXli PREFACE.

cessible ; and to ascertain, by the public recep-
tion of this first part, whether it will be expedient
to give the remainder that extension which was at
one time contemplated, or to contract it within
narrower limits. A history of Entomology, and a
complete list of entomological works, (for which
last Mr. Dryander's admirable catalogue of Sir
Joseph Banks's library affords the fullest mate-
rials,) entered into the original plan, and the
rough draught of both is completed; but whether
these (which are not essential to a work of this
nature) will be published, must depend upon the
judgement of the public as to the value of that
portion now submitted to them.

The contents of the remaining volumes will be
nearly as follows. Societies of Insects, including
the History of Ants, Wasps, Bees, &c. Motions
of insects. Noises of insects. Means of defence
from their enemies. Luminous insects. Hyber-
nation of insects. Instinct of insects. Definition
oftheterm/wsec^ States of insects — Egg; Larva;
Pupa ; Imago. Their general exterior Anatomy
— Head; Trunk; Abdomen. Their mierio?' Ana-
tomy and Physiology — Sensation ; Respiration ;
Circulation; Digestion; Secretion; Generation;
Diseases, &c. Senses of insects. Orisraology and
Definitions of terms. Characters of insects —
Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species, Variety.

PREFACE. XXllI

Invcstig-ation of insects. Seasons in which they
appear. Instruments and mode of takin'j and
preserving them^ — with other particulars wliich
it is not necessary here to enumerate.

The List of Authors quoted in this work will
be found in the last vohime. It was intended to
liave given with this all the plates illustrative of
the orderSj but only three could be finished in
time : the remainder will appear in the second
volume^ and those which relate to the anatomy
and definitions in the third and fourth.

CONTENTS OP VOL. I.

Letter Page

I. Introductory, 1 — 20

II. Objections answered, 21 — 58

III. Metamorphoses of Insects , 59 — 70

IV. Direct Injuries caused by Insects, • • • • 80 — 143
V. Indirect Injuries caused by Insects.

1. Injuries to our living animal Property, 144' — 165
VI. Indirect Injuries continued.

2. Injuries to our living vegetable Pro-

perty, 166—211

VII. The same subject continued. — The Ra-
vages of Lecusts, 212—223

VIII. Indirect Injuries concluded.

3. Injuries to our dead Property, whe

ther animal or vegetable, 224 — 246

IX. Indirect Benefits derived from Insects, . • 247 — 296

X. Direct Benefits derived from Insects, • • • • 297 — 336

XI. Affection of Insects for their Young,. • • • 337 — 381

XII. Food of Insects, 382—402

XIII. The same subject continued, 403 — 433

XIV. Habitations of Insects.

1 . Of Solitary Insects, 434 — 475

XV. Habitations of Insects continued.

2. Of Insects in Society, 476 — 518

AN

INTRODUCTION

TO

ENTOMOLOGY.

LETTER I.

Dear Sir, * •

J CANNOT wonder that an active mind like yours
should experience no small degree of tedium in a situation
so far removed, as you represent your new residence to
be, fi'om "the busy hmn of men." Nothing certainly
can compensate for the want of agreeable society ; but
smce your case in this respect admits of no remedy but
patience, I am glad you are desirous of turning your at-
tention to some pursuit which may amuse you in the in-
tervals of severer study, and in part supply the void of
which 3'ou complain. I am not a little flattered that you
wish to be infonned which class m the three kingdoms
of nature is, in my opinion, most likely to answer your
purpose; at the same time intmiating that you feel in-
clined to give the preference to Entomology, provided
some objections can be satisfactorily obviated, which you
have been accustomed to regard as urged with a consi-
derable semblance of reason against the cultivation of that
science.

VOL. I. B

2 INTRODUCTORY LETTER.

Mankind in general, not excepting even philosophers,
are prone to magnify, often beyond its just merit, the
science or pursuit to which they have addicted them-
selves, and to depreciate any that seems to stand in com-
petition with their favourite : like the redoubted cham-
pions of romance, each thinks himself bound to take the
field against every one that will not subscribe to the
peerless beauty and accomplishments of his own Dul-
cinea. In such conflict for pre-eminence I know no sci-
ence that, in this country, has come off worse than En-
tomology: her champions hitherto have been so few, and
their efforts so unavailing, that all her rival sisters have
been exalted above her ; and I believe there is scarcely
'any branch of Natural History that has had fewer Bri-
tish admirers. While Botany boasts of myriads, she,
though not her inferior either in beauty, s^anmetry, or
grace, has received the homage of a very slender train
indeed. Since therefore the merits of Entomology have
been so little acknowledged, you will not deem, it invi-
dious if I advocate the cause of this distressed damsel,
and endeavour to effect her restoration to her just rights,
privileges, and rank. '

Things that are universally obvious and easy of exa-
mination, as they are the first that fall under our notice,
so are they also most commonly those which we first feel
an inclination to study; while, on the contrary, things
that must be sought for in order to be seen, and which
when sought for avoid the approach and inquiring eye
of man, are often the last to which he directs his atten-
tion. The vegetable kingdom stands in the former pre-
dicament. Flora with a liberal hand has scattered around
us her charming productions; they every >Vhere meet

INTRODUCTORY LETTER. S

and allure us, enchanting us by their beauty, regaling us
by their fragrance, and interesting us as much by their
subservience to our luxuries and comfort, as to the ne-
cessary support and well-being of our life. Beasts, birds,
and fishes also, in some one or other of these respects,
attract our notice ; but insects, unfortunate insects, are
so far from attracting us, that we are accustomed to ab-
hor them from our childhood. The first knowledjje that
we get of tliem is as tonnentors; they are usually pointed
out to us by those about us as ugly, filthy, and noxious
creatures ; and the whole insect world, butterflies per-
haps and some few others excepted, are devoted by one
imiversal ban to proscription and execration, as fit only
to be trodden under our feet and crushed : so that often,
before we can persuade oin'selves to study them, we have
to remove from our minds prejudices deeply rooted and
of long standuifj.

Another principal reason which has contributed to
keep Entomology in the back gromid arises from the di-
minutive size of the objects of which it treats. Being
amongst the most minute of nature's productions, they
do not so readily catch the eye of the observer; and
when they do, mankmd in general are so apt to estimate
the worth and importance of things by their bulk, that
because w^e usually measure them by the duodecimals of
an mch instead of by the foot or by the yard, insects are
deemed too insignificant parts of the creation, and of too
little consequence to its general welfare, to render them
worthy of any serious attention or study. What small
foundation there is for such prejudices and misconcep-
tion, I shall endeavour to show in the course of our fu-
ture correspondence ; my object now, as the champion

b2

4 INTRODUCTORY LETTER.

and advocate of Entomology, is to point out to you her
comparative advantages, and to remove the veil which
has hitherto concealed those attractions, and that grace
and beauty, w^hich entitle her to equal admiration at least
with her sister branches of Natural History.

In estimating the comparative value of the study of
any department in this branch of science, we ought to
contrast it with others, as to the rank its objects hold in
the scale of being; the amusement and instruction which
the student may derive from it ; and its utility to society
at large. With respect to public utility, the study of
each of the three kingdoms may perhaps be allowed to
stand upon nearly an equal footing ; I shall not, there-
fore, enter upon that subject till I come to consider the
question Cid bono ? and to point out the uses of Ento-
mology, but confine myself now to the two first of these
circumstances.

As to rank, I must claim for the entomologist some
degree of precedence before the mineralogist and the
botanist. The mineral kingdom, whose objects are nei-
ther organized nor sentient, stands certainly at the foot
of the scale. Next above this is the vegetable, whose
lovely tribes, though not endued with sensation, are or-
ganized. In the last and highest place ranks the animal
world, consisting of beings that are both organized and
sentient. To this scale of precedence the great modern
luminary of Natural History, notwithstanding that Bo-
tany was always his favourite pursuit, has given his sanc-
tion, acknowledging in the preface to his Faima Suecica,
that although the vegetable kingdom is nobler than the
mineral, yet the animal is more excellent than the vege-
table. Now it is an indisputable axiom, I should think,

INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 5

that the more exalted the object tlie more excellent the
study. By this observation, however, I would by no
means be thought to depreciate or discountenance the
study either of plants or minerals. All the works of our
Creator are great, and worthy of our attention and in-
vestigation, the lowest in the scale as well as the highest,
the most minute and feeble, as well as those that exceed
in magnitude and miiiht. Nor ought those whose incli-
nation or genius leads them to one department, to say to
those who prefer another — " we have no need of you" —
for each in his place, by diffusing the knowledge of his
works and adding to the stock of previous discoveries,
contributes to promote tlie glory of the Great Architect
of tlie universe and the good of his creatures.

It is not my wish to claim for my favom^ite science
more than of right belongs to her ; therefore, when the
question is concerning rank, I must concede to the higher
orders of animals, I mean Fishes, Amphibia, Birds, and
Quadrupeds, their due priority and precedence. I shall
only observe here, that there may exist circumstances
which countervail rank, and tend to render the study of
a lower order of beings more desirable than that of a
higher : when, for instance, the objects of the higher
study are not to be come at or preserved without great
difficulty and expense ; when they are few in number; or,
when they are already well ascertamed and known : cir-
cumstances which attach to the study of those animals
that precede insects, while they do not attach to the
study of insects themselves.

With regard to the amusement and instruction of the
student, nuich doubtless may be derived from any one of
the sciences alluded to : but Entomology certahily is not

6 INTRODUCTORY LETTER.

behind any of her sisters in these respects ; and if you
are fond of novelty, and anxious to make new discove-
ries, she will open to you a more ample field for these
than either Botany or the higher branches of Zoology.

A new animal or plant is seldom to be met with even
by those who have leisure and opportunity for extensive
researches ; but if you collect insects, you will find, how-
ever limited the manor upon which you can pursue your
game, that your efforts are often rewarded by the cap-
ture of some non-descript or rarity at present not pos-
sessed by other entomologists, for I have seldom seen a
cabinet so meager as not to possess some unique speci-
men. Nay, though 3'ou may have searched every spot
in your neighbourhood this year, turned over every stone,
shaken every bush or tree, and fished every pool, you
will not have exhausted its insect productions. Do the
same another and another, and new treasures will still
continue to enrich your cabinet. If you leave your own
vicinity for an entomological excursion, your prospects
of success are still further increased; and even if confined
m bad weather to your inn, the windows of your apart-
ment, as I have often experienced, will add to your stock.
If a sudden shower obliges you at any time to seek shel-
ter under a tree, your attention will be attracted, and the
tedium of your station relieved, where the botanist could
not hope to find even a new lichen or moss, by the ap-
pearance of several insects, driven there perhaps by the
same cause as yourself, that you have not observed be-
fore. Should you, as I trust you will, feel a desire to
attend to the manners and economy of insects, and be-
come ambitious of making discoveries in this part of en-
tomological science, I can assure you, from long experi-

INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 7

ence, tliat you will here find an inexhaustible liuid ol"
novelty. For more tlian twenty years my attention has
been directed to them, and during most of my sununer
walks my eyes have been employed in observing their
ways; yet I can say with truth, that so far from having
exhausted the subject, within the last six months I have
witnessed more interesting facts respecting their history
tlian in many preceding years. To follow only the in-
sects that frequent your own garden, from their first to
their last state, and to trace all their proceedings, would
supply an interesting amusement for the remainder of
your life, and at its close you would leave much to be
done by your successor ; for where we know thoroughly
the history of one insect, there are hundreds concerning
which wc have ascertained little besides the bare fact of
their existence.

But numerous other sources of pleasure and informa-
tion will open themselves to you, not inferior to what any
other science can furnish, when you enter more deeply
into the study. Insects, indeed, appear to have been na-
ture's favourite productions, in which, to manifest her
power and skill, she has combined and concentrated al-
most all that is either beautiful and graceful, interesting
and alluring, or curious and smgidar, in every other class
and order of her children. To these, her valued minia-
tures, she has given the most delicate touch and highest
finish of her pencil. Numbers she has armed with glit-
tering mail, which reflects a lustre hke that of burnished
metals ^ ; in others she lights up tlie dazzling radiance of
polished gems ^. Some she has decked with what looks

' The genera Eumolpus, F. Lampiimr/, Latr. Bijnchites, Herbst.
^ Cri/iHorhynchiis rutilans, Kirhy.

8 INTRODUCTORY LETTER.

like liquid drops, or plates of gold and silver ^ ; or with
scales or pile, which mimic the colour and emit the ray
of the same precious metals ^. Some exhibit a rude ex-
terior, like stones in their native state *^, while others re-
present their smooth and shining face after they have
been submitted to the tool of the polisher: others, again,
like so many pygmy Atlases bearing on their backs a
microcosm, by the rugged and various elevations and de-
pressions of their tuberculated crust, present to the eye
of the beholder no unapt imitation of the unequal surface
of the earth, now horrid with mis-shapen rocks, ridges,
and precipices — now swelling into hills and mountains,
and now sinking into valleys, glens, and caves ^ ; while
not a few are covered with branching spines, which fancy
may form into a forest of trees '^.

What numbers vie with the charming offspring of Flora
in various beauties ! some in the delicacy and variety of
their colours, colours not like those of flowers evanescent
and fugitive, but fixed and durable, surviving their sub-
ject, and adorning it as much after death as they did
when it was alive ; others, again, in the veining and tex-
ture of their wings ; and others in the rich cottony down
that clothes them. To such perfection, indeed, has na-
ture in them carried her mimetic art, that you would de-
clare, upon beholding some insects, that they had robbed
the trees of their leaves to form for themselves artificial
wings, so exactly do they resemble them in their form,

* Hesperia Cupido, F. Papilio Pass'iflorcB, Lathonia, L, &c.
^ Pepsis fuscipennis, argeiitata, F. &c.

•^ The species of the genus Trox, F.

" Many of the Scarabccidcc, Dynastidce, MacLeay, &c.

* Many caterpillars of Butterflies. Merian Snrinam, t, xxii. xxv,
&c. and of Sawflies. Reaum. v. t, xii. /. 7, 8—14.

INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 9

substance, and vascular structure; some representing
green leaves, and others those that are dry and withered'.
Nay, sometimes this mimicry is so exquisite, that you
would mistake the wliule insect for a portion of the
branching spray of a tree ^. No mean beauty in some
plants arises from the fluting and pimctuation of their
stems and leaves, and a similar ornament conspicuously
distinguishes numerous insects, which also imitate with
multiform variety, as may particularly be seen in the ca-
terpillars of many species of the butterfly tribe {Pajnli-
onidce), the spines and prickles which are given as a Noli
me tangcre armour to several vegetable productions.

In fishes the lucid scales of varied hue that cover and
defend them are universally admired, and esteemed
their peculiar ornament; but place a buttei-fly's wing
under a microscope, that avenue to unseen glories in
new worlds, and you will discover that natiire has en-
dowed the most nmnerous of the insect tribes with the
same privilege, multiplying m them the forms *=, and di-
versifying the colouring of this kind of clothing beyond
all parallel. The rich and velvet tmts of the plumage
of birds are not superior to what the curious observer
may discover in a variety of Lcjndojjtera ; and those
many-coloured eyes which deck so gloriously the pea-
cock's tail are imitated with success by one of our most
common butterflies'*. Feathers are thought to be pe-
culiar to birds ; but insects often imitate them in their
antennae ^, wings ^, and even sometmies in the covering

■ Various species of the genera Lociista and Mantis, F.

•> Many species of Phasma. '" De Geer, I. t. 3. /. 1 — 34, &c.

♦1 rajiUio lo, L.

* Culex, L. Chironomus, Meig., and other T'lpididis.

' Plouphorus, F.

10 INTRODUCTORY LETTER.

of their bodies ^. — We admire with reason the coats of
quadrupeds, whether their skins be covered with pile, or
wool, or fur, yet are not perhaps aware that a vast va-
riety of insects are clothed with all these kinds of hair,
but infinitely finer and more silky in texture, more bril-
liant and delicate in colour, and more variously shaded
than what any other animals can pretend to.

In variegation insects certainly exceed every other
class of animated beings. Nature, in her sportive mood,
when pamting them, sometimes imitates the clouds of
heaven ; at others, the meandring com'se of the rivers
of the earth, or the undulations of their waters : many
are veined like beautiful marbles ; others have the sem-
blance of a robe of the finest net- work thrown over them;
some she blazons with heraldic msignia, giving them to
bear in fields sable — azure — vert — ^gules — argent and
or, fesses — ^bars — Abends — crosses — crescents — stars, and
even animals ^. On many, taking her rule and com-
passes, she draws with precision mathematical figures ;
points, lines, angles, triangles *^, squares, and circles. On
others she pourtrays, with mystic hand, what seem like
hieroglyphic symbols, or inscribes them with the cha-
racters and letters of various languages, often very cor-
rectly formed'^; and, what is more extraordmary, she
has registered in others figures which correspond with
several dates of the Christian era K

Nor has nature been lavish only in the apparel and

a Hairs of many of the Apulce. Mon. Ap. Aug. 1. 1. 10, ** d. 1 ./. \.b.

^ Ptbius imperialis, L. '^ Trichiiis delta, F.

** Priomis longimanus, F. PapUio C. album, L. Bombi/x i^, Noc-
tua y, F,

" On the underside of the prhtiary wings near the margin in Pa-
pilio Aghda, Lalhonia, Silciie, &c.

INTRODUCTORY LETTER. II

ornament of these privileged ti'ibes ; in otlier respects
she has been equally unsparing of her favours. To
some she has given fins like those of fish, or a beak re-
sembling that of birds ^; to others horns, nearly the
counterparts of those of various quadrupeds. The bull '',
the stag*=, the rhinoceros'', and even the hitherto vainly
sought for luiicorn *^, have in this respect many repre-
sentatives amonji'st insects. One is armed with tusks
not unlike those of the elephant ^ ; another is bristled
with spines, as the porcupine and hedge-hog with (juills^;
a third is an armadillo in miniature ; the disproportioned
hhid legs of the kangaroo give a most grotesque appear-
ance to a fourth ^; and the threatening liead of the snake
is found in a fifth '. It would, however, be endless to
produce all the instances which occur of such imitations;
and I shall only remark that, generally speaking, these
arms and instruments in structure and finishing far ex-
ceed those which they resemble.

But fiu'ther, insects not only mimic, in a manner in-
finitely various, every thing in natiu'e, they may also
with very little violence be regarded as symbolical of
beings out of and above nature. Tlie butterfly, adorned
with every beauty and every grace, borne by radiant
wings through the fields of ether, and extracthig nectar
from every flower, gives us some idea of the blessed in-
habitants of happier worlds, of angels, and of the spirits
of the just arrived at their state of perfection. Again,

' Empis, L, Anilits, L. ^ Copris Taurus, F.

' Lticaniis Cervus, L. '^ Oryctcs, Latr.

*■ Dynastes Hercules, Macleay. ^ Mditta sjoinigcra, Kirby.

s Hispa, L. '' Celonia macropus, Mus.

' Rap/tidia oph'wpsis, L, Francill.

12 INTRODUCTORY LETTER.

Other insects seem emblematical of a different class of
unearthly beings : when we behold some tremendous for
the nmnerous horns and spines projecting in horrid
array fi'om their head or shoulders ; — others for their
threatenhig jaws of fearful length, and armed with cruel
fangs : when we survey the dismal hue and demoniac air
that distinguish others, the dens of darkness in which
they live, the impurity of their food, their predatory ha-
bits and cruelty, the nets which they spread, and the
pits which they sink to entrap the unwary, we can scarce-
ly help regarding them as aptly symbolizing evil demons,
the enemies of man, or of impure spirits for their vices
and crimes driven from the regions of light into dark-
ness and punishment *.

The sight indeed of a well-stored cabinet of insects
will bring before every beholder not conversant with
them, forms in endless variety, which before he would
not have thought it possible could exist in nature, re-
sembling nothing that the other departments of the ani-
mal kingdom exhibit, and exceeding even the wildest
fictions of the most fertile imaginations. Besides proto-
types of beauty and symmetrj^, there in miniature he will
be amused to survey (for the most horrible creatures
when deprived of tlie power of injury become sources of
interest and objects of curiosity), to use the words of our

great poet,

all prodigious things

Abominable, unutterable, and worse

Than fables yet have feign' d, or fear concciv'd,

Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimaeras dire.

^ This idea seems to have been present to the mind of LmxiC and
Fabricius, when they gave to insects such names as Bdzcbub, Belial,
2'Uan, Tijphon, Nimi-od, Gcrijon, and the like.

INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 1$

But the pleasures of a student of the science to which
I am desirous of introducing you, are far iVoni beuig
confined to such as result from an examination of the
exterior form and decorations of insects ; for could these,
endless as they seem, be exhausted, or, wonderful as
tliey are, lose their interest, yet new sources, exuberant
in amusement and instruction, nuiy be opened, which
will furnish an almost infinite fund for his curiosit}' to
draw upon. The striking peculiarity and variety of
structure which they exhibit in their instruments of nu-
trition, motion, and ovijiosition, in their organs of sen-
sation, generation, and the great fountauis of vitality,
indeed their whole S3^stem, anatomically considered, will
open a world of wonders to you with which you will not
soon be satiated, and during your survey of which 3'ou
will at every step feel disposed to exclaim with tlie Ro-
man naturalist — " In these beings so minute, and as it
were such non-entities, what wisdom is displayed, what
power, what unfathomable perfection ^ 1 " But even this
will not bring you to the end of your pleasures : you
must leave the dead to \'isit the living ; you must behold
insects when full of life and activity, engaged in their
several employments, practising their various arts, pur-
suing their amours, and preparing habitations for their
progenj- : you must notice the laying and kind of their
eggs, their wonderful metamorphoses; their instincts,
whether they be solitary or gregarious, and the other
miracles of their history — all of which will open to you
a richer mine of amusement and instruction, I speak it
without hesitation, than any other department of Natm'al

» PHn. 7/m/. Nat a. 11. c. 2.

14f INTRODUCTORY LETTER.

History can furnish. A minute enumeration of these
particulars would be here misplaced, and only forestall
what will be detailed more at large hereafter ; but a ra-
pid glance at a very few of the most remarkable of them,
may serve as a stimulus to excite your curiosity, and in-
duce you to enter with greater eagerness into the wide
field to which I shall conduct you.

The lord of the creation plumes himself upon his
powers of invention, and is proud to enumerate the va-
rious useful arts and machines to which they have given
birth, not aware that " He who teacheth man know-
ledge" has instructed these despised insects to anticipate
him in many of them. The builders of Babel doubtless
thought their invention of turning earth into artificial
stone, a very happy discovery * ; yet a little bee '' had
practised this art, using indeed a different process, on a
small scale, and the white ants on a large one, ever since
the world began. Man thinks that he stands unrivalled
as an architect, and that his buildings are without a pa-
rallel among the works of the inferior orders of animals.
He would be of a different opinion did he attend to the
history of insects : he would find that many of them have
been architects from time immemorial ; that they have
had their houses divided into various apartments, and
containing staircases, gigantic arches, domes, colon-
nades, and the like ; nay, that even tunnels are exca-
vated by them so immense, compared with their own size,
as to be twelve times bigger than that projected by Mr.
Dodd to be carried under the Thames at Gravesend *=.

" Gen. xi. 3. '' Megachile mitraria, Latr.

*= The white ants.

iJjTHODtJCTORY LETTER. 15

The modern fine lady, wlio prides herself on the histrc
antl beauty of the scarlet hangings which adorn the state-
ly walls of her drawing-room, or the carjiets tlmt cover
its floor, fancying that nothing so rich ilnd s})lendid was
ever seen before, and pitying her vulgar ancestors, who
Mere doomed to unsightly white-wash and rushes, is ig-
norant all the while, that befoi-e she or her ancestors
were in existence, and even beft)re the boasted Tyrian
tlye was discovered, a little insect had known how to
hang the walls of its cell with tapestry of a scarlet more
brilliant than any lier rooms can exhibit", and that
others daily weave silken carpets, both in tissue and
texture infinitely superior to those she so much admires*
Other arts have been equally forestalled by these crea-
tures. What vast importance is attached to the inven-
tion of paper ! For near six thousand years one of oui
commonest insects has known how to make and apply it
to its purposes ^ ; and even pasteboard, superior in sub-
stance and polish to any we can produce, is manufac-
tured by another *=. We imagine that nothing short of
human intellect can be equal to the consti'uction of a
diving-bell or an air-pump — yet a spider is in the daily
liabit of using the one, and, what is more, one exactly
similar in principle to ours, but more igeniously con-
trived ; by means of which she resides unwetted in the
bosom of the water, and procures the necessary supplies
of air by a much more simple process than our alterna-
ting buckets'* — and the cateipillar of a little moth knows
how to imitate the other, producing a vacuum, when

■ Mcgachile Papavcris, Latr. ^ The coninion wasp.

'= Polisfcs nidulam, Latr. '^ Aranca aquatica, L.

16 INTRODUCTORY LETTER.

necessary for its purposes, without any piston besides its
own body *. If we think with wonder of the populous
cities which have employed the united labours of man
for many ages to bring them to their flill extent, what
shall we say to the white ants, which require only a few
months to build a metropolis capable of containing an
infinitely greater number of inhabitants than even im-
perial Nmeveh, Babylon, Rome, or Pekm, in all their
glory?

That insects should thus have forestalled us in our
inventions, ought to urge us to pay a closer attention to
them and their ways than we have hitherto done, since
it is not at all improbable that the result would be many
useful hints for the improvement of our arts and manu-
factures, and perhaps for some beneficial discoveries.
The painter might thus probablj' be furnished with more
brilliant pigments, the dyer with more delicate tints, and
the artisan with a new and improved set of tools. In
tliis last respect insects deserve particular notice. All
tlieir operations are performed with admirable precision
and dexterit}^ ; and though they do not usually vary the
mode, yet that mode is always the best that can be con-
ceived for attaining the end in view. The instrimients
also with which they are provided are no less wonderful
and various than the operations themselves. They have
their saws, and files, and augers, and gimlets, and knives,
and lancets, and scissors, and forceps, with many other
similar implements ; several of which act in more than
one capacity, and with a complex and alternate motion
to which we have not yet attained in the use of our

» Pkalcena Tinea serratella, L.

INTItODl I I'OHY I.E'ITEH. 17

tools. Nor is the I'act so extraordinary as it may seem
at first, since " He who is wise in heart and wonderful
in workinfr" is the inventor and fabricator of tlie appa-
ratus of insects; which maybe considered as a set of
miniature patterns drawn for our use by a Divine hand.
I shall hereafter give you a more detailed account of
some of the most striking of these instruments ; and if
you stuily insects in this view, you will be well repaid
tor all the labour and attention you bestow u})on them.

But a more important species of instruction than any
hitherto enumerated may be derived from entomological
pursuits. If we attend to the history and manners of
insects, they will furnish us with many useful lessons in
Ethics, and from them we may learn to improve our-
selves in various virtues. We have indeed the inspired
autliority of the wisest of mankind for studying them in
this view, since he himself wrote a treatise upon them,
and sends his sluggard to one for a lesson of wisdom *.
And if we value diligence and indefatigable industry ;
judgement, prudence, and foresight; economy and fru-
gality; if we look upon modesty and difiidence as female
ornaments ; if we revere parental affection — of all these,
and many more virtues, insects in their various instincts
exhibit several striking examples, as you will see in the
course of our correspondence.

With respect to religious instruction insects are far
from unprofitable; indeed in this view Entomology
seems to possess peculiar advantages above every other
branch of Natural History. In the larger animals,
though we admire the consummate art and wisdom ma-

» 1 Kings iv. 33. Prov. vi. 6—8.
VOL. I. C

18 INTRODUCTORY LETTER.

nifested in their structure, and adore tliat Almighty
power and goodness which by a wonderful machinery,
kept in motion by the constant action and re-action of
the great positive and negative powers of Nature, main-
tains in full force the circulations necessary to life, per-
ception, and enjoyment ; yet as there seems no dispro-
portion between the objects and the different operations
that are going on in them, and we see that they afford
sufficient space for the play of their systems, we do not
experience the same sensations of wonder and astonish-
ment that strike us when we behold similar operations
carried on without interruption in animals scarcely visi-
ble to the naked eye. That creatures, which in the scale
of being are next to non-entities, should be elaborated
with so much art and contrivance, have such a number
of parts both internal and external, all so highly finished
and each so nicely calculated to answer its end ; that
they should include in this evanescent form such a va-
riety of organs of perception and instruments of motion,
exceeding in number and peculiarity of structure those
of other animals ; that their nervous and respiratory sy-
stems should be so complex, their secretory and digestive
vessels so various and singular, their parts of generation
so clearly developed, and that these minims of nature
should be endowed with instincts in many cases superior
to all our boasted powers of intellect — truly these won-
ders and miracles declare to every one who attends to
the subject, " The hand that made us is divine." We
are the work of a Being infinite in power, in wisdom,
and in goodness.

But no religious doctrine is more strongly established
by the history of insects than that of a superintending

IMTRODUCTORY LETTER. 19

Providence. That of the innumerable species of tliese
beings, many of them beyontl conception fragile and ex-
posed to dangers and enemies without end, no link
should be lost from the chain, but all bo maintainetl in
those relative proportions necessary for the general good
of the S3'stem ; that if one species for a while prepon-
derate, and instead of preserving seem to destroy, yet
counterchecks should at the same time be provided to
reduce it within its due limits ; and further, that the
operations of insects should be so directed and overruled
as to effect the purposes for which they were created
and never exceed their commission : nothing can furnish
a stronger proof than this, that an unseen hand holds
the reins, now permitting one to prevail and now an-
other, as shall best promote certain wise ends ; and say-
ing to each, " Hitherto shalt thou come and no further."

So complex is this mundane system, and so incessant
the conflict between its component parts, an observation
which holds good particularly with regard to insects,
that if instead of being under such control it were left to
the agency of blind chance, the whole must inevitably
soon be deranged and go to ruin. Insects, in truth, are
a book in which whoever reads under proper impres-
sions cannot avoid looking from the cause to the effect,
and acknowledging his eternal power and godhead thus
wonderfully displaj^ed and irrefragably demonstrated :
and whoever beholds these works with the eyes of the
body, must be blind indeed if he cannot, and perverse
indeed if he will not, with the eye of the soul behold in
all his glory the Almighty Workman, and feel disposed,
with every power of his nature, to praise and magnify
*' Him first. Him last, Him midst, Him without end."
c2

20 IMTRODUCTORY LETTER.

And now having led you to the vestibule of an august
temple, which in its inmost sanctuary exhibits .enshrined
in glory the symbols of the Divine Presence, I should
invite you to enter and give a tongue to the Hallelujahs,
which every creature in its place, by working his will
with all its faculties, pours forth to its great Creator :
but I must first endeavour to remove, as I trust I shall
effectuall}^, those objections to the study of these interest-
ing beings which I alluded to in the outset of this letter,
and this shall be the aim of my next address.

I am, &c.

LETTER II.

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

In my last I gave you a general view of the science ot
Entomology, and endeavourecl to prove to you that it
possesses attractions and beauty sullicient to reward any
student who may profess himself its votary. 1 am now
to consider it in a less alluring light, as a pursuit at-
tended by no small degree of obloquy, in c()nse(|uence
of certain objections thought to be urged with great
force against it. To obviate these, and remove every
scruple from your mind, shall be the business of the
present letter.

Two principal objections are usually alleged with great
confidence against the study and pursuit of insects. By
some they are derided as trifling and luiimportant, and
deemed an egregious waste of time and talents ; by others
they are reprobated as unfeeling and cruel, and as tend-
ing to harden the heart.

I. I shall begin with the first of these objections —
that the entomologist is a mere trifler. As for the silly
outcry and abuse of the ignorant vulgar, who are always
ready to laugh at what they do not understand, and be-
cause insects arc minute objects conclude that the study
of them must be a childish pursuit, I shall not waste
words upon what I so cordially despise. But since even
Iciuned men and philosophers, from a partial and pre-

22 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

judiced view of the subject, having recourse to this com-
mon-place logic, are sometimes disposed to regard all
inquiry into these minutias of nature as useless and idle,
and the mark of a little mind ; to remove such prejudice
and misconceptions I shall now dilate somewhat upon
the subject of Cui bono ?

When we see many wise and learned men pay atten-
tion to any particular department of science, we may
naturally conclude that it is on account of some profit
and instruction which they foresee may be derived from
it; and therefore m defending Entomology I shall first
have recourse to the Argtimenium ad vereamdiamj and
mention the great names that have cultivated or recom-
mended it.

We may begin the list with the first man that ever
lived upon the earth, for we are told that he gave a
name to every living creature ^, amongst which insects
must be included ; and to give an appropriate name to
an object necessarily requires some knowledge of its di-
stinguishing properties. Indeed one of the principal
pleasures and employments of the paradisiacal state was
probably the study of the various works of creation ^.
Before the fall the book of nature was the Bible of man,
in which he could read the perfections and attributes of
the invisible Godhead ^, and in it, as in a mirror, behold
an image of the things of the spiritual world. Moses
also appears to have been conversant with our little
animals, and to have studied them with some attention.
This he has shown, not only by being aware of the di-
stinctions which separate the GryllidcB {Gn/llus, L.) into

' " Gen. ii. 19. ^ Linn. Fn. Succ. Praef. « Rom. i. 19, 20.

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 23

(liflerent genera", but also by noticing the different di-
rection of the tivo anterior from the four posterior legs
of insects ; for, as he speaks of them as going upon four
legs ^, it is evident that he considered the two anterior
as arms. Solomon, the wisest of mankind, made Na-
tural History a peculiar object of study, and left treatises
behind him upon its various branches, in which creeping
//lings or insects were not overlooked '^ ; and a wiser than
Solomon directs our attention to natural productions,
when he bids us consider the lilies of the field ^, teaching
us that they are more worthy of our notice than the
most glorious works of man: he also not obscurely inti-
mates that insects are symbolical beings, when he speaks
of scorpions as synonymous with evil spirits ^; thus giv-
ing into our hands a clue for a more profitable motle of
studying them, as furnishing moral and spiritual instruc-
tion.

If to these scri}>tural authorities we add those of un-
inspired writers, ancient and modern, the names of many
worthies, celebrated both for wisdom and virtue, may be
produced. Aristotle among the Greeks, and Pliny the
elder among the Romans, may be denominated the fa-
thers of Natural History, as well as the greatest philo-
sophers of their day ; yet both these made insects a prin-
cipal object of their attention : and in more recent times,
if we look abroad, what names greater than those of
Redi, Malpighi, \'allisnieri, Swammerdam, Leeuwen-
hoek, Reaumur, Linne, De Geer, Bonnet, and the
Hubers? and at home, what philosophers have done

^ Levit. xi. 21, 33. Lichtenstein in Linn. Trans, iv. 51, 53.
*> Levit. xi. 20. conf. Bochart. Hicrozoic. ii. 1.4. c. 9. 407-8.
' 1 Kings iv. 33. " Luke xii. 27. « Ibid. x. \9, 20.

24 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

more honour to their country and to human nature than
Ray, Wilhighby, Lister, and Derham? Yet all these
made the study of insects one of their most favourite
pursuits ; and, as if to prove that this study is not in-
compatible with the highest flights of genius, we can add
to the list the name of one of the most sublime of our
poets, Gray, who was very zealously devoted to Ento-
mology. As far therefore as names have weight, the
above enumeration seems sufficient to shelter the votaries
of this pleasing science from the charge of folly.

But we do not wish to rest our defence upon authori-
ties alone ; let the voice of reason be heard, and our jus-
tification will be complete. The entomologist, or, to
speak more generally, the naturalist (for on this question
of Cui bono P every student in all departments of Na-
tural History is concerned), if the following considera-
tions be allowed their due weight, may claim a much
hio;her station amongst the learned than has hitherto
been conceded to him.

There are two principal avenues to knowledge — the
study of words and the study of things. Skill in the
learned languages being often necessary to enable us to
acquire knowledge in the former way, is usually consi-
dered as knowledge itself; so that no one asks Cui bono F
when a person devotes himself to the study of verbal
criticism, and employs his time in correcting the errors
ihat have crept into the text of an ancient writer. In-
deed it must be owned, though perhaps too much stress
is sometimes laid upon it, that this is very useful to en-
able us to ascertain his true meaning. But after all,
words are but the arbitrary signs of ideas, and have no
value independent of those ideas, further than what arises

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 25

from congruity and harmony, the mhul being di.sbalbhed
when an iilea is expressed by inadecpiale words, and the
ear ollended when their collocation is inharmonious. To
account the mere knowledge of words, therefore, as wis-
dom, is to mistake the cask for tlie wuie, and the casket
for the gem. I say all this because knowledge of words
is often extolled beyond its just merits, and put for all
wisdom, while knowledge of things, especially of the pro-
ductions of nature, is derided as if it were mere folly.
We should recollect that God hath condescended to in-
struct us by both these ways, and therefore neither of
them should be depreciated. He hath set before us his
word and his world. The former is the great avenue to
truth and knowledge by the study of words, and, as be-
ing tlie immediate and authoritative revelation of his will,
is entitled to our principal attention ; the latter leads us
to the same conclusions, tJiough less directly, by the study
of things, which stands next in rank to that of God's
word, and before that of any work of man. And whe-
ther we direct our eyes to the planets rolling in their or-
bits, and endeavour to trace the laws by which they are
guided through the vast of space, whether we analyse
those powers and agents by which all the operations of
nature are performed, or whether we consider the vari-
ous productions of this our globe, from the mighty cedar
to the microscopic mucor — from the giant ele[)luuit to the
invisible mite, still we are studying the works and won-
ders of om* God. The book, to whatever page we turn,
is written by the finger of him who created us ; and in it,
provided our minds be rightly disposed, we may read his
eternal verities. And the more accurate and enlarged
our knowledge of his works, the better shall wc be able

26 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

to understand his word ; and the more practised we are
in his word, the more readily shall we discern his truth
in his works ; for, proceeding from the same great Au-
thor, they must, when rightly interpreted, mutually ex-
plain and illustrate each other.

Who then shall dare maintain, unless he has the har-
dihood to deny that God created them, that the study of
insects and their ways is trifling or unprofitable ? Were
they not arrayed in all their beauty, and surrounded with
all their wonders, and made so instrumental (as I shall
hereafter prove them to be) to our welfare, that we might
glorify and praise him for them? Why were insects made
attractive, if not, as Ray well expresses it, that they might
ornament the universe and be delightful objects of con-
templation to man * ? And is it not clear, as Dr. Paley
has observed, that the production of beauty was as much
in the Creator's mind in painting a butterfly or in stud-
ding a beetle, as in giving symmetry to the human frame,
or graceful curves to its muscular covering ^ ? And shall
we think it beneath us to study what he hath not thought
it beneath him to adorn and place on this great theatre
of creation ? Nay, shall we extol those to the skies who
bring together at a vast expense the most valuable speci-
mens of the arts, the paintings and statues of Italy and
Greece, all of which, however beautiful, as works of man,

» "Quaeri fortasse a nonnullis potest, Quis Papilionum usussit?
Respondeo, Ad ornatum Universi, et ut hominibus spectaculo sint :
ad riira illustranda velut tot bractea; inservientes. Quis enira eximiam
earum pulchritudinem et varietatem contemplans mira voluptate non
afficiatur ? Quis tot colorum et schematum elegantias naturae ipsius
ingenio excogitatas et artifici penicillo depictas curiosis oculis in-
tuens, divinae artis vestigia cis impressa non agnoscat et niiretur ?"
Rai. Hist. Ins. 109.

" Xaf. ThcoL 213.

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED, 27

fall short of perfection ; and deride and upbraid those
who collect, for the purpose of admirin<r their beauty,
the finished and perfect chef-d'ocuvres of a Divine artist ?
May we gaze with rapture unblamed ujion an Apollo of
Belvedere, or Venus de Medicis, or upon the exquisite
paintings of a Raphael or a Titian, and yet when we be-
liold with ecstasy sculptures that are produced by the
chisel of the Almighty, and the inimitable tints laid on
by his pencil^ because an insect is the subject, be exposed
to jeers and ridicule?

But there is another reason, which in the present age
renders the study of Natural History an object of im-
portance to every well-wisher to the cause of Religion,
who is desirous of exerting his faculties in its defence.
For as enthusiasm and false religion have endeavoured
to maintain their ground by a perversion of the text of
scripture, so also the patrons of infidelity and atheism
have laboured hard to establish their impiety by a ]>er-
version of the text of nature. To refute the first of these
adversaries of truth and " sound religion, it is necessary
to be well acquainted with the isoord of God ; to refute
the second, requires an intimate knowledge of his "works ,-
and no department can furnish him with more powerful
arguments of every kmd than the world of insects — every
one of which cries out in an audible voice. There is a
God — he is Almighty, all-wise, all-good — his watchful
providence is ever, and every where, at work for the pre-
servation of all things.

But since mankind in general are too apt to look chiefly
at this world, and to regard things as important or other-
wise in proportion as they are connected with sublunary
interests, and promote our present welfare, I shall pro-

28 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED,

ceecl further to prove that the study of msects may be
productive of considerable utiHty, even in this view, and
may be regarded in some sort as a necessary or at least
a very useful concomitant of many arts and sciences.

The importance of insects to us both as sources of good
or evil, I shall endeavour to prove at large hereafter ; but
for the present, taking this for granted, it necessarily fol-
lows that the study of them must also be important. For
when we suffer from them, if we do not know the cause,
how are we to apply a remedy that may diminish or pre-
vent their ravages ? Ignorance in this respect often oc-
casions us to mistake our enemies for our friends, and
our friends for our enemies ; so that when we think to do
good we only do harm, destroying the innocent and let-
ting the guilty escape. Many such instances have oc-
curred. You know the orange-coloured fly of the wheat
( Tipula Tritici, Kirby in Linn. Trans. Cecidomyia, Latr.),
and have read the account of the damage done by this
little insect to that important grain ; you are aware also
that it is given in charge to three little parasites to keep
it within due limits ; yet at first it was the general opinion
of unscientific men, that these destroyers of our enemy
were its parents, and the original source of all the mis-
chiefs. Middleton, in his " Agrimlhtre of Middlesex"
speaking of the Aphis that is so injurious to the bean,
tells us that the lady-birds are supposed either to gene-
rate or to feed upon them''. Had he been an entomolo-
gist, he would have been in no doubt whether they were
beneficial or injurious : on the contrary, he would have
recommended that they should be encouraged as friends

^ Kirby, in Linn. Tram, iv. 232. 235. See also a letter signed C,
in the Gent. Mag. for August 17D5. " P. 192.

OBJF.CTTONS ANSWERED. 29

to mall, since no insecls arc greater dovonrers of the
Aphkles. Tlie confounding of the a]ii)lc Apliis, that has
done such extensive injury to our orchards, with others,
has led to proceedings still more injurious. This is one
(»f those s})ecies from the skin of which transpires a white
cottony secretion. Some of the proprietors of orchards
about Evesham, observing an insect which secreted a si-
milar substance upon the jiopiar, imagined that iVom this
tree the creature which they had found so noxit)us was
generated ; and in consecjuence of this mistaken notion
cut down all their poplars*. The same indistinct ideas
mijiht have induced tiiem to fell all their larches and
beeches, since they also are infested by Aphides which
transpire a similar substance. Had these persons pos-
sesseil any entomologiciil knowledge, they would have
examined and compared the insects before they liad form-
ed their opinions, and being convinced that tlie poplar
and apple Aphis are distinct species, would have saved
their trees.

But could an entomological observer even ascertain
tlie species of any noxious insect, still in many cases,
without further information, he may lali short of his pur-
pose of prevention. Thus we are told that in Germany
the gardeners and country people, with great industry,
gather whole baskets full of the caterpillar of the destruc-
tive cabbage moth [Nochia Brassiccc, Fab.) and then bury
them, which, as Roesel well observes^, is just as if we
should endeavour to kill a crab by covering it with wa-
ter ; for, many of them being full grown and ready to
pass into their next state, which they do underground,
instead of destroying them by this manoeuvre, their ap-

" Collet, in Moitf//. Mmr. xxxii. 320. '' Roesel I. iv. 170.

30 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

pearing again the following year in greater numbers Is
actually facilitated. Yet this plan applied to our com-
mon cabbage caterpillar, which does not go underground,
would succeed. So that some knowledge of the manners
of an insect is often requisite to enable us to check its ra-
vages effectually. With respect to noxious caterpillars
in general, agricultm'ists and gardeners are not usually
aware that the best mode of preventing their attacks is to
destroy the female fly before she has laid her eggs, to do
which the moth proceeding from each must be first as-
certained. But if their research were carried still further,
so as to enable them to distinguish the pupa and discover
its haunts, and it would not be at all difficult to detect
that of the greatest pest of our gardens, the cabbage but-
terfly, the work might be still more effectually accom-
plished. Some larvae are polyphagous, or feed upon a
variety of plants ; amongst others that of the yellow-tail
moth [Bomhyx ckrysorhcea, F.); yet gardeners think they
have done enough if they destroy the web-like nests which
so often deform our fruit trees, without suspecting that
new armies of assailants will wander from those on other
plants which they have suffered to remain. Thus will
thousands be produced in the following season, which,
had they known how to distinguish them, might have
been extirpated. Another instance occurred to me last
year, when walking with a gentleman in his estate at a
village in Yorkshire. Our attention was attracted by se-
veral circular patches of dead grass, each having a stick
with rags suspended to it, placed in the centre. I at once
discerned that the larva of the cock-chafer had eaten the
roots of the grass, which being pulled up by the rooks
that devour this mischievous grub, these birds had been

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. SI

mistaken by the tenant for the cause of the evil, and the
rags were placed to frighten away his best friends. On
inquiry why he had set up these sticks, he replied, " He
could n't beer to see'd nasty craws pull up all'd gess, and
sae he'd set'd bairns to hing up some aud clouts to flay
'em away. Gin he'd letten 'cm alean they'd scan hev
reated up all'd close." Nor could I convince him by all
that I could say, that the rooks were not the cause of the
evil. Even philosophers sometimes fall into gross mis-
takes from this species of ignorance. Dr. Darwin has ob-
served, that destroying the beautiful but injurious wood-
peckers is the only alternative for preventing the injury
they do to our forest-trees by boring into them ^ ; not
being aware that they bore only those trees which insects
have previously attacked, and that they diminish very
considerably the number of such as are prejudicial to our
forests.

From these facts it is sufficiently evident that entomo-
logical knowledge is necessary both to prevent fatal mis-
takes, and to enable us to check with effect the ravages
of insects. But ignorance in this respect is not only un-
fit to remedy the evil ; on the contrary, it may often be
regarded as its cause. A large proportion of the most
noxious insects in every country are not indigenous, but
have been imported. It was thus that the moth ( Tinea
Mcllonella) so destructive in bee-hives, and the aspara-
gus beetle {Lema Asparagi, F.) were made denizens of
Sweden". The insect that has destroyed all the peach-
trees in St. Helena was imported from the Cape ; and at
home (not to mention bugs and cock-roaches) the great
pest of our orchards, before mentioned, the apple Aphis,

• PJnjtologia, 518. " Fn. Siicc. 567, 138.3.

3'2 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

there is good reason to believe, was introduced with some
foreign apple-trees. Now, extensive as is our commerce,
it is next to impossible, by any precautions, to prevent
the importation of these noxious agents. A cargo, or
even a sample, of peas from North America might pre-
sent us with that ravager of pulse, the pea-beetle [Bni-
cJius Pisi, L.); or the famed Hessian fly, which some
years ago caused such trepidation in our cabinet, might
be conveyed here in a ship-load of wheat. Leeuwenhoek's
wolf (77«c« gra?iclla, F.) might visit us, in a similar con-
veyance, from Holland or France. But though intro-
duced, were Entomology a more general pursuit, their
presence would soon be detected, and the evil at once
nipt in the bud ; whereas in a country where this science
was not at all or little cultivated, they woufd most pro-
bably have increased to such an extent before they at-
tracted notice, that every effort to extirpate them would
be ineffectual.

It is needless to insist upon the importance of the study
of insects, as calculated to throw light upon some of the
obscurest points of general physiology ; nor would it be
difficult, though the task might be invidious, to point out
how grossly incorrect and deficient are many of the spe-
culations of our most eminent philosophers, solely from
their ignorance of this important branch of Natural His-
tory. How little qualified would that physiologist be to
reason conclusively upon the mysterious subject of gene-
ration, who should be ignorant of the wonderful and un-
looked-for fact, brought to light by the investigations of
an entomologist, that one sexual intercourse is sufficient
to fertilize the eggs of numerous generations of Aphides !
And how defective would be all our reasonings on the

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 99

powers of nutrition and secretion, luid we yet to learu
that in insects both are in action unaccompanied by the
circulatinj; system and jjlands of larj^er animals !

In another point of view entomological information is
very useful, A great deal of unnecessary mischief is pro-
duced, and unnecessary uneasiness occasioned, by what
are calletl vulgar errors, and that superstitious reliance
upon charms, which prevents us from having recourse to
remeilies that are really efficacious. Thus, for instance,
eating figs and sweet things has been supposed to gene-
rate lice*. Nine larvae of the moth of the wild teasel in-
closed in a reed or goose quill have been reckoned a re-
medy for ague^. Matthiolus gravely affirms that every
oak-gall contains either a fly, a spider, or a worm, and
that the first foretells war, the second pestilence, and the
third famine '^. In Sweden the peasants look upon the
grub of the cock-chafer as furnishing an unfailing pro-
gnostic whether the ensuing winter will be mild or se-
vere ; if the animal have a blueish hue (a circumstance
which arises fi-om its being replete with food) they affirm
it will be mild, but on the contrary if it be white the wea^
ther will be severe : and they carry this so far as to fore-
tell, that if the anterior part be white and the posterior
blue, the cold will be most severe at the beginning of the
winter. Hence they call this grub Bemdrkelse-mask, or
prognostic worm''. A similar augury as to the harvest
is drawn by the Danish peasants from the Acari which
infest the common dung beetle [Scarabaus stercwarius^
L.), called m Danish Skar?ibosse or Torbist. If there are

■ Amoreux, 270. •> Rai. Cat. Cant. 45. Hkt. Im. 341.

•• Comment, in Dioscor. 1. 1. c. 23. 214. Lesser. L. ii. 280.
■^ De Geer, iv. 275-6.
VOL. I. D

34 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

many of these inltes between the fore feet, they believe
that there will be an early harvest, but a late one if they
abound between the hind feet *. The appearance of the
death's head moth {Sjjhinx Atropos, L.) has in some
countries produced the most violent alarm and trepida-
tion amongst the people, who, because it emits a plain-
tive sound, and is marked with what looks like a death's
head upon its back, regarded it as the messenger of pes-
tilence and death ^. We learn from Linne that a similar
superstition, built upon the black hue and strange aspect
of that beetle, prevails in Sweden with respect to Blaps
viortisaga^ L. ^ ; and in Barbadoes, according to Hughes,
the ignorant deem the appearance of a certain grasshop-
per in their houses as a sure presage of illness to some
of the family ''-

One would not think that tlie excrements of insects
could be objects of terror, yet so it has been. Many
species of Lepidoptera, when they emerge from the pupa
state, discharge from their anus a reddish fluid, which, in
some instances, where their numbers have been consider-
able, has produced the appearance of a shower of blood;
and by this natural fact, all those bloody showers, re-
corded by historians as preternatural, and regarded where
they happened as fearful prognostics of impending evils,
are stripped of their terrors, and reduced to the class of
events that happen in the common course of nature.
That insects are the cause of these showers is no recent
discovery ; for Sleidan relates that in the year 1553 a
vast multitude of butterflies swarmed through a great

" Detharding de Inscctis Coleopteris Danicis, 9.
*» Reaum. ii. 289. '■ Faun. Suec, S22.

«« Xat.Hhl.o/Barbad.So.

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 35

part of Germany, and sprinkled plants, leaves, buildings,
clothes and men, with bloody drops, as if it liad rained
blood ^. But the most interesting account of an event
of this kind is given by Reaunuu*, from whom we learn
that in the beginning of July 1608 the suburbs of Aix,
and a consiilerable extent of country round it, were co-
vered with Avhat appeared to be a shower of blood. We
may conceive the amazement and stupor of the populace
upon such a discovery, the alarm of the citizens, tlie
grave reasonings of the learned. All agi-eed however in
attributing this appearance to the powers of darkness,
and in regarding it as the prognostic and precursor of
some direful misfortune about to befall them. Fear and
prejudice would have taken deep root upon this occasion,
and might have produced fatal effects upon some weak
minds, had not M. Peiresc, a celebrated philosopher of
that place, paid attention to insects. A chrysalis, which
he preserved in his cabinet, let him into the secret of this
mysterious shower. Hearing a fluttering, which informed
him his insect was arrived at its perfect state, he opened
the box in which he kept it. The animal flew out and
left behind it a red spot. He compared this with the
spots of the bloody shower, and found they were alike.
At the same time he observed there was a prodigious
quantity of butterflies flying about, and that the drops of
the miraculous rain were not to be found upon the tiles,
nor even upon the upper surface of the stones, but chiefly
in cavities and places where rain could not easily come.
Thus did this judicious observer dispel the ignorant fears
and terror which a natural phenomenon had caused''.
The same author relates an instance of the gardener

" Quoted in Mouflfet, 107. '' Reauin. i. 667.

D '_>

S6 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

of a gentleman being thrown into a horrible flight by
digging some of the curious cases, which I shall hereaifter
describe to you, of the leaf-cutter bees, and which he
■conceived to be the effect of witchcraft portending some
terrible misfortune. By the advice of the priest of the
parish he even took a journey from Rouen to Paris, to-
show them to his master : but he, happily having more
sense than the man, carried them to M. Nollet, an emi-
nent naturalist, who having seen similar productions was
aware of the cause, and opening one of the cases, while
the gardener stood aghast at his temerity, pointed out
the gi'ub that it contained, and thus sent him back with
a light heart, relieved from all his apprehensions^.

Every one has heard of the death-watch, and knows
of the superstitious notion of the vulgar, that in whatever
house its drum is heard one of the family will die before
the end of the year. These terrors, in particular in--
stances, where they lay hold of weak minds, especially
of sick or hj'pochondriac persons, may cause the event
that is supposed to be prognosticated. A small degree
of entomological knowledge would relieve them from all
their fears, and teach them that this heart-sickening tick
is caused by a small beede [Anobium tessellatum, F.) which
lives in timber, and is merely a call to its companion.
Attention to Entomology may therefore be rendered very
usefiil in this view, since nothing certainly is more desi-
rable than to deliver the human mind from the dominion
of superstitious fears, and false notions, which having
considerable influence on the conduct of mankind are the
cause of no small portion of evil.

But as we cannot well guard against the injuries pro-
- Reaum. vi. 99-100. Kuby Mo>i. Ap. Arg. i. 157-8.

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 37

ciuced by insects, or remove the evil, wheiher real or
arising from misconceptions respecting them, which they
occasion, unless we have some knowledge of them ; so
neither without such knowledge can we apply them, when
beneficitii, to our use. Now it is extremely probable that
they might be made vastly more subservient to our ad*
vantage and profit than at present, if we were better ac-
quainted with them. It is the remark of an author, who
himself is no entomologist : " We have not taken animals
enough into alliance with us. The more spiders there
■were in the stable, the less would the horses sufTer from
the flies. The great American fire-fly should be imported
into Spain to catch mosquitos. In hot countries a re-
ward should be offered to the man who could discover
what insects feed upon fleas ^." It would be worth our
while to act upon this hint, and a similar one of Dr.
Darwin. Those insects might be collected and preserved
tliat are known to destroy the Aphides and other inju-
rious tribes; and we should thus be enabled to direct
their operations to any quarter where they would be most
serviceable : but this can never be done till experimental
agriculturists and gardeners are conversant with insects^
and acquainted with their j^roperties and economy. How
is it that the great Being of beings preserves the system
which he has created from permanent injury, in conse-
quence of the too great redundancy of an}' individual
species, but by employing one creature to prey upon an-
other, and so overruling and directing the instincts of all,
that they may operate most where they are most wanted !
\V e cannot better exercise the reasoning powers and fa-
culties with which he has rndowerl us, than by copying

* Southev'g J/ffc/'j/^, 4to, Notes, .")]3.

38 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

his example. We often employ the larger animals to
destroy each other, but the smaller, especially insects,
we have totally neglected. Some may think, perhaps,
that in aiming to do this we should be guilty of presump-
tion, and of attempting to take the government and di-
rection of things out of the hands of Providence : but
this is a very weak argument, which might with equal
reason be adduced to prove that when rats and mice be-
come troublesome to us, we ought not to have recourse to
dogs, ferrets, and cats to exterminate them. \Vhen any
species multiplies upon us, so as to become noxious, we
certainly have a just right to destroy it, and what means
can be more proper than those which Providence itself
has furnished ? We can none of us go further or do more
than the Divine Will permits; and he will take care that
our efforts shall not be injurious to the general welfare,
or effect the annihilation of any individual species.

Again, with regard to insects that are employed in
medicine or the arts, if the apothecary cannot distinguish
a Ly tta from a Carabus or Cetonia, both of which I have
found mixed with the former, how can he know whether
his druggist furnishes him with a good or bad article?
And the same observation may with still greater force
apply to the dyer in his purchase of cochineal, since it is
still more difficult to distinguish the wild sort from the
cultivated. There are, it is probable, many insects that
might be employed with advantage in both these depart-
ments : but unless Entomology be more generally studied
by scientific men, who are the only persons likely to
m_ake discoveries of this kind, than it has hitherto been,
we must not hope to derive further profit from them. It
seems more particularly incujnbent upon the professors

OBJECTIONS ANSWKKED. 39

of the divine art of healing to becoinc conversant with
this as well as the other branches of Natural History ;
for not only do they derive some of their most useful
drugs from iiisects, but many also of the diseases upon
which they are consulted, as we shall see hereafter, are
occasioned by them. For want of this kind of informa-
tion medical men run the risk ol" confoundinfj diseases
perfectly distinct, at least as to tlic anhnal that causes
them. It would be a most desirable thing to have pro-
fessors in each brunch of Natural History in our univer-
sities, and to make it indispensable, in order to the ob-
taining of any degree in Physic, that the candidate should
have attended these lectures. We may judge from the
good effects that the arts have derived from the }iresent
very general attention to Chemistry, how beneficial would
be the consequence if Entomology were equally culti-
vated: and I shall conclude tliis paragraph with what I
think may be laid down as an incontrovertible axiom : —
That the profit we derive from the works of creation \viil
be in })ropartion to the accin-acy of our knowledge of
them and their }>roperties.

I trust I have now said enough to convince you and
every thinking man that the study of insects, so far from
being vain, idle, trifling, or unprofitable, may be attended
with very important advantages to mankind, and ought
at least to be placed upon a level with many other
branches of science, against which such accusations are
never alleged.

But I must not conceal from you that there are ob-
jectors who will still return to the charge. They will
say, " We admit that the pursuits of the entomologist

40 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

are important when he directs his views to the destruc-
tion of noxious insects ; the discovery of new ones hkely
to prove beneficial to man ; and to practical experiments
upon their medical and economical properties. But where
are the entomologists that in fact pursue this course?
Do they not in reality wholly disregard the economical
department of their science, and content themselves with
making as large a collection of species as possible ; ascer-
taining the names of such as are already described ; de-
scribing new ones ; and arranging the whole in their ca-
binets under certain families and genera? And can a
study with these sole ends in view deserve a better epi-
thet than triflinij? Even if the entomologist advance a
step further, and invent a new system for the distribution
of all known insects, can his laborious undertaking be
deemed any other than busy idleness ? What advantage
does the world derive from having names given to ten or
twenty thousand insects, of which numbers are not big-
ger than a pin's head, and of which probably not a hun-
dredth part will ever be of any use to mankind ? "

Now in answer to this supposed objection, which I
have stated as forcibly as I am able, and which, as it
may be, and often is, urged against every branch of Na-
tural History as at present studied, well deserves a full
consideration, I might in the first place deny that those
who liave the highest claim to rank as entomologists do
confine their views to the systematic department of the
science to the neglect of economical observations ; and
in proof of my assertion, I might refer abroad to a Linne,
a Reaumur, a De Geer, a Huber, and various other
names of the highest reputation ; and at home to a Ray,
a Lister, a Derham, a Marsham, a Curtis, a Clark, a

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 41

Roxburgh, &c. But I do not wish to conceal tlmt
though a large proportion of entomologists direct their
views much further than to the nicre nomenclature of
their science, there exists a great number, probably the
majority, to whom the objection will strictly apply. Now
I contend, and shall next endeavour to i)rove, that en-
tomologists of this description are devoting their time to
a most valuable end ; and are conferring upon society a
benefit incalculably greater than that derived from the
labours of many of those who assume the privilege of
despising their pursuit.

Even in favour of the mere buttei'fly-hunter — he who
has no higher aim than that of collecting a picture of
Lepidoptera^ and is attached to insects solely by their
beauty or singularity, it would not be difficult to say
much. Can it be necessary to declaim on the superi-
ority of a people amongst whom intellectual pleasures,
however trifling, are preferred to mere animal gratifica-
tions ? Is it a thing to be lamented that some of the
Spitalfields weavers occupy their leisure hours in search-
ing for the Adonis buttei-fly, and others of the more
splendid Lepidoptera ^^ i'nstead of spending them in play-
ing at skittles or in an alehouse? Or is there in truth
any thing more to be wished than that the cutlers of
Sheffield were accustomed thus to emplo}' their Saint
Mondays ,- and to recreate themselves after a hard day's
work, by breathing the pure air of their surrounding
hills, while in search of this "untaxed and undisputed
game**;" and that more of the Norwich weavers were fond

» Haworth Lrpid. Brit. 44. o/.

'^ Oft have I smiled the happy pride to see
or humble tradesmen in their evening glee,

42 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

of devoting their vacant time to plant-hunting, like Jo-
seph Fox recorded by Sir James Smith as the first raiser
of a Lycopodium from seed ^ ? "

Still more easy is it to advocate the cause of another
description of entomologists — the general collectors.
These, though not concerning themselves with the sy-
stem, contribute most essentially to its advancement.
We cannot expect that princes, noblemen, and others
of higli rank or large fortune, who collect insects, shoidd
be able or willing to give up the time necessary for study-
ing them systematically : but their museums being ac-
cessible to the learned entomologist afford him the use
of treasures which his own limited funds or opportunities
could never have brought together. As to others of less
consequence that content themselves with the title of col-
lectors, they also have tlieir use. Having devoted them-
selves to this one department, they become more expert
at it, than the philosopher who combines deep researches

When of some pleasing fancied good possest,
Each grew alert, was busy and was blest :
Whether the call-bird yield the hour's delight,
Or magnified in microscope the raite ;
Or whether tumblers, croppcrR, carriers seize
The gentle mind ; they rule it and they please.
There is my friend the weaver ; strong desires
Reign in his breast ; 'tis beauty he admires :
See to the shady grove he wings his way.
And feels in hope the rapture of the day —
Eager he looks, and soon to glad his eyes.
From the sweet bower by nature form'd arise
Bright troops of ^^rgin moths, and fresh born butterflies.

He fears no bailiff's wrath, no baron's blame,
His is untax'd and undisputed game.

Crabbc's Borough, p. 110.
* Linn. Tram, ii. 315.

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 43

with the collection of objects; and ihus are many sj)ecies
brought together for the use of the systematist, that would
otlierwise remain unknown.

But to proceed to the defence of S3'stematic entomolo-
gists.— These may be divided into two great classes:
the first comprising those who confine themselves to as-
certaining the names of the insects they collect ; the se-
cond," those who, in addition, publish descriptions of
new species ; new arrangements of intricate genera ; or
extrications of entangled synonyms ; and who, in other
respects, actively contribute to the perfection of the
system.

Now with regard to the first class, setting aside what
may be urged in behalf of the study of insects consider-
ed as the work of the Creator, it is easy to show that,
even with such restricted views, their pursuit is as com-
mendable, and as useful both to themselves and the com-
munity, as many of those on which we look with the
greatest respect. To say the least in their favoui", they
amuse themselves innocently, wliich is quite as much as
can be urged for persons who recreate their leisure hours
with music, painting, or desultory reading. They fur-
nish themselves with an unfailing provision of that "grand
panacea for the tccdium vita;" — emplojanent — no unim-
portant acquisition when even Gray was forced to ex-
claim, with reference to the necessity of " always having
something going forward " towards the enjoyment of life,
*' Happy they who can create a rose-tree or erect a ho-
ney-suckle ; that can watch the brood of a hen, or see a
fleet of their own ducklings launch iiito the water ^ ! "

* Letter to Dr. Wharton. Mason'? J>ifc f>f (jmij, p. Z^.

44 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

and like the preceding class, they collect valuable ma-
terials for the use of more active labourers, being thus
at least upon a par with the majority of book-collectors
and antiquaries.

But this is the smallest half of the value of their pur-
suit. With what view is the study of the mathematics
so generally recommended ? Not certainly for any prac-
tical purpose — not to make the bulk of those Avho attend
to them, astronomers or engineers. But simply to ex-
ercise and strengthen the intellect — to give the mind a
habit of attention and of investigation. Now for all these
purposes, if I do not go so far as to assert that the mere
ascertainuig of the names of insects is equal to the study
of the mathematics, I have no hesitation in affirming
that it is nearly as eflPectual ; and with respect to giving
a habit of minute attention, superior. Such is the intri-
cacy of nature, such the imperfection of our present ar-
rangements, that the discovery of the name of almost
any insect is a problem, calling in all cases for acuteness
and attention, and in some for a balancing of evidence,
a calculation of the chances of error, as arduous as are
required in a perplexed law-case ; and a process of ratio-
cination not less strict than that which satisfies the ma-
thematician. In proof of which assertion I need only
refer any competent judge to the elaborate disquisitions
of Laspeyres, called for by one work alone on the lepi-
dopterous insects of a single district — the Wiener Ver-
zeichniss, which occupy above tAvo hundred octavo pages',
and must have cost the learned author nearly as much
labour of mind as the Ductor Diihitantii(m did Bishop
Taylor.

• lUig. M(tg. ii. 33. iv. 3.

OBJECTIONS ANSWEKKD. 45

Do not appreliend tliat this occusioiuil perplexity Is
miv deduction tVom the attnictions ot'tlie science: though
in itself, in some respects, an evil, it lornis in liict to
many minds one of the chief of them. The pursuit of
truth, in whatever path, affords pleasure : but the in-
terest would cease if she never gave us trouble in the
chase. Horace Walpole useil to say that from a child
he could never bring himself to attend to any book that
was not full of proper names ; and the satisfaction which
he felt in dry investigations concerning noble authors
and obscure painters, is experienced by many iui ento-
mologist who spends hours in disentangling the synonymy
of a doubtful species. Nor would it be easy to prove
that the wordy researches of the one are not to every
practical pinpose as valuable as those of the other. We
smile at the Frenchman told of by Menage, that was so
enraptured with the study of heraldry and genealogy, as
to lament the hard case of our forefather Adam, who
could not possibly amuse himself with such investiga-
tions *. But many an entomologist who has felt the de-
licious sensation attendant upon the indisputable ascer-
tainment of an insect's name after a long search, will feel
inclined to indulge in similar grief for the unhappy lot
of his successors, when all shall be smooth sailing in the
science.

But in behalf of those who are more eminently enti-
tled to be called entomologists — those who, not content
with collecting and investigating insects, occupy them-
selves in naming and describing such as have been be-
fore unobserved ; in instituting new genera or reforming
the old ; and, to say all in one word, in perfecting the

' Andrews's Anecdotes, lo2.

46 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

system of the science, still higher claims can be urged.
Suppose that at this moment our dictionaries of the
French and German languages were so very defective,
that we were unable by the use of them to profit from
the discoveries of their philosophers ; the labours of a
Michaelis being a sealed book to our theologists, and
those of La Place to our astronomers. On this supposi-
tion, would not one of the most important literary un-
dertakings be the compilation of more perfect dictionaries,
and would not the humblest contributor to such an end
be deemed most meritoriously engaged ? Now precisely
what an accurate dictionary of a particular language is
tov/ards enabling the world to participate in the disco-
veries published in that language, is a system of Ento-
mology towards enabling mankind to derive advantage
from any discoveries relative to insects. A good system
of insects containing all the known species, arranged in
appropriate genera, families, orders, and classes, is m
fact a dictionary, putting it within our power to ascertain
the name of any given insect, and thus to learn what has
been observed respecting its properties and history as
readily as we determine the meaning of a new word in a
lexicon. In order to impress upon you more forcibly
the absolute need of such a system, I must enter into still
further detail.

There is scarcely a country in which several thousand
insects may not be found. Now, without some scientific
arrangement, how is the observer of a new fact respect-
ing any one of them, to point out to distant countries
and to posterity the particular insect he had in view ?
Suppose an observer in England were to find a certain
beetle which he had demonstrated to be a specific for

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 47

consumption ; and that it was necessary that this insect,
which there was reason to believe was common in every
part of the world, should be administered in a recent
state. Would he not be anxious to proclaim the happy
discovery to sulVercrs in all quarters ol" the globe ? As
his remedy would not admit of transportation, he would
have no otlier means than by describing it. Now the
question is, whether, on the supposition that no system
of Entomology existed, he would be able to do this, so
as to be intelligible to a physician in North America, for
instance, eager to admuiister so precious a medicine to
his expiring patient ? It would evidently be of no use to
say that the specific was a beetle : there are thousands
of different beetles in North America. Nor would size
or colour be any better guide : there are hundreds of
beetles of the same size and the same colour. Even the
plant on which it fed woidd be no sufficient clue; for
many insects, resembling each other to an unpractised
eye, feed on the same plant ; and the same insect in dif-
ferent countries feeds upon different plants. His only
resource, then, would be a coloured figure and full de-
scription of it. But every entomologist knows that there
exist insects perfectly distinct, yet so nearly resembling
each other, that no engraving, nor any language other
than that strictly scientific, can possibly discriminate
them. After all, therefore, the chances are, that our
discoverer's remedy, invaluable as it might be, must be
confined to his own immediate neighbourhood, or to
those who came to receive personal information from him.
But with what ease is it made known when a system of
the science exists ! If the insect be already described,
he has but to mention its generic and trivial names, and

4-8 OBJECTION'S ANSWERED.

by aid of two words alone, every eiitomologlst, though
in tlie most distant region — whetlier a Swede, a German,
or a Frenchman ; whether a native of Europe, of Asia,
of America, or of Africa, knows instantly the very species
that is meant, and can that moment ascertain whether it
be within his reach. If the species be new and unde-
scribed, it is only necessary to indicate the genus to
which it belongs, the species to whicli it is most nearly
allied, and to describe it in scientific terms, which may
be done in few words, and it can at once be recognised
by every one acquainted with the science.

You will think it hardly credible that there should
be so much difficulty in describing an insect intelligibly
without the aid of system ; but an argumentum ad homi-
nem^ supported by some other facts, will, I conjecture, ren-
der this matter more comprehensible. You have doubt-
less, like every one else, in the showery days of sum-
mer, felt no little rage at the jiies, which at such times
take the liberty of biting our legs, and contrive to make
a comfortable meal through the interstices of their silken
or cotton coverings. Did it, I pray, ever enter into 3'our
conception, that these blood-thirsty tormentors are a dif-
ferent species from those flies which you are wont to see
extending the lips of their little proboscis to a piece of sugar
or a drop of wine ? I dare say not. But the next time you
have sacrificed one of the former to your just vengeance,
catch one of the latter and compare them. I question ifi
after the narrowest comparison, you will not still venture a
wager that they are the very same species. Yet you would
most certainly lose your bet. They are not even of the
same genus — one belonging to the genus Musca {M. do-
mestical L.), and the other to the genus Stomoxys (S. cal-

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 49

(x/rnns, V.); and on a second cxaniinalion you will find
that, however alike iinnost respects, ihey difler widely in
the shape of their proboscis ; that of the Stomoxys being
a horny sharp-pointed weapon, caimble of piercing the
flesh, while the soft blinit organ of the Musca is perfectly
incompetent to any such opt-ration. In future, while you
no longer load the whole race of the house-fly with the
execrations which j:)roperly belong to a quite different
tribe, you will cease being surprised that an ordinary de-
scription should be insufficient to discriminate an insect.
It is to this insufficiency that we must attribute our igno-
rance of so many of the insects mentioned by the older
naturalists, previously to the systematic improvements of
the immortid Linne : and to the same cause we must re-
fer the impossibility of determining what species are al-
luded to in the accounts of many modern travellers and
agriculturists who have been ignorant of Entomology as
a science. Instances without number of this impossibi-
lity might be adduced, but I shall confine myself to two.

One of the greatest pests of Surinam and other low re-
gions in South America, is the insect called in the West
Indies, where it is also troublesome, the chigoe {Pulex
poietrans, L.), a minute species, to the attacks of which I
shall again have occasion to advert. This insect is men-
tioned by almost all the writers on the countries where it
is found. Not less than eight or ten of them have endea-
voured to give a full description of it, and some of them
have even figured it ; and yet, strange to say, it was not
certainly known whether it was a flea [Pulcx) or a mite
{Acarus\ till a competent naturalist undertook to investi-
gate its history, and in a short paper in the Sxvedish Tram-

VOL. I. ^

50 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

actiojis ' proved that Linne was not mistaken in referring
it to the former genus.

The second instance of the insufficiency of popular
description is even more extraordinary. In 1 788 an alarm
was excited in this country by the probability of import-
ing, in cargoes of wheat from North America, the insect
known by the name of the Hessian fly, whose dreadful
ravages will be adverted to hereafter. However the in-
sect tribes are in general despised, they had on that oc-
casion ample revenge. The privy council sat day after
day anxiously debating what measures should be adopt-
ed to ward off the danger of a calamity, more to be
dreaded, as they well knew, than the plague or pesti-
lence. Expresses were sent off* in all dii'ections to the
officers of the customs at the different outports respecting
the examination of cargoes — dispatches written to the
ambassadors in France, Austria, Prussia, and America,
to gain that information of the want of which they were
now so sensible : and so important was the business
deemed, that the minutes of council and the documents
collected from all quarters fill upwards of two hundred
octavo pages''. Fortunately England contained one il-
lustrious naturalist, the most authentic source of infor-
mation on all subjects which connect Natural History with
Agriculture and the Arts, to whom the privy council had
the wisdom to apply ; and it was by Sir Joseph Banks's
entomological knowledge, and through his suggestions,
that they were at length enabled to form some kind of

" Swartz in Kongl. Vet. Ac. Kya. hand, ix, 40. Plate XXIII. Fig, 10.
" Young's Annals of Agriculture, xi. 406.

OBJECTION'S ANSM'EHED. 51

judgement on the subject. This judgement was after
all, however, very ini})erlect. As Sir Jose})h Banks had
never seen the Hessian fly, nor was it described in any
entoniolooical system, he called for facts respecting its
nature, propagation, and economy, which could be had
only Ironi America. These were obtained as speedily
as possible, and consist of numerous letters from indivi-
duals ; essay's from magazines ; the reports of the Bri-
tish minister there, &c. &c. One would have supposed
that from these statements, many of them drawn up by
farmers who had lost entire crops by the insect, which
they }^rofess to have examined in every stage, the requi-
site information might have been acquired. So far how-
ever was this from being the case, that many of the wri-
ters seem ignorant whether the insect be a moth, a fl}',
or what they term a bug. And though from the con-
current testimony of several its being a two-wanged fly
seemed pretty accurately ascertained, no intelligible de-
scription is given, from which any naturalist can infer to
what genus it belongs, or whether it is a known species.
With regard to the history of its propagation and eco-
nomy the statements were so various and contradictory,
that thouMi he had such a mass of materials before him.
Sir Joseph Banks was unable to reach any satisfactory
conclusion.

Nothing can more incontrovertibly demonstrate the im-
portance of studying Entomology as a science than this
fact. Those observations, to w'hich thousands of un-
scientific sufferers proved themselves incompetent, would
have been readily made by one entomologist well versed
in his science. He would at once have determined the
order and genus of the insect, and whether it was a

E 2

52 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

knowTi or new species ; and in a twelvemonth at furthest
he would have ascertained in what manner it made its at-
tacks, and whether it were possible that it might be trans-
mitted along with grain into a foreign country ; and on
these solid data he could have satisfactorily pointed out
the best mode of eradicating the pest, or preventing the
extension of its ravages.

But it is not merely in travellers and popular observers
that the want of a systematic knowledge of Entomology
is so deplorable. A great portion of the labours of the
profoundest naturalists have been from a similar cause
lost to the world. Many of the insects concerning which
Reaumur and Bonnet have recorded the most interesting
circumstances, cannot, from their neglect of system, be
at this day ascertained'. The former, as Beckmann'*
states on the authority of his letters, was before his death
sensible of his great error in this respect : but Bonnet,
with singular inconsistency, constantly maintained the
inutility of system, even on an occasion when, from his
ignorance of it. Sir James Smith, speaking of his experi-
ments on the barberry, found it quite impossible to make
him comprehend what plant he referred to*=.

So great is the importance of a systematic arrange-
ment of insects. Yet no such arrangement has hitherto
been completed. Various fragments towards it indeed
exist. But the work itself is in the state of a diction-
ary wanting a considerable proportion of the words of
the language it professes to explain ; and placing those,

• No one knew Reaumur's Ahcille Tapissiere until Latreille, hap-
pily combining system with attention to the economy of insects,proved
itto be a new species — YCi'^ McgnchilePapaverls. — Hist.dcFourmis,297.

^ Bihliotheh: vii. 310. '' Tour on tJir Cont'ment/niA^Q,

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 53

uhich it does contain, in an orilcr often .so aibitiary and
defective, that it is diificult to discover even the papje con-
taining the word you are in search of. Can it be denied,
then, tliat they are most meritoriously employed who de-
vote themselves to the removal of these defects — to tlie
perfecting of tiie system — and to clearing the path of fu-
ture economical or physiological observers from the ob-
structions which now beset it? And who that knows the
vast extent of the science, and how impossible it is that
a dividetl attention can embrace the whole, will contend
that it is not desirable that some labourers in the field
of literature should devote themselves entirely and exclu-
sively to this object? Who that is aware of the import-
ance of the comprehensive views of a Fabricius, an Illi-
ger, or a Latrellle, and the infinite saving of time of which
their inquiries will be productive to their followers, will
dispute their claim to rank amongst the most honourable
ill science?

II. No objection, I think, now remains against ad-
dicting ourselves to entomological pursuits, but that which
seems to have the most weight with vou, and which in-
deed is calculated to make the deepest impression upon
the best minds — I mean the charge of inhumanity and
cruelty. That the science of Entomology cannot be pro-
perly cultivated without the death of its objects, and that
this is not to be effected without putting them to some
pain, must be allowed; but that this substantiates the
charge of cruelty against us, I altogether deny. Cruelty
is an unnecessary infliction of suffering, when a person is
fond of torturing or destroying God's creatures from
mere w antonness, with no useful end in view ; or w hen,

51 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

if their death be usetul and lawful, he has recourse to cir-
cuitous modes of killing them, where direct ones would
answer equally well. This is cruelty, and this with you
I abominate ; but not the infliction of death when a just
occasion calls for it.

They who see no cruelty in the sports of the field, as
they are called, can never, of course, consistently allege
such a cliarge against the entomologist ; the tortures of
wounded birds, of fish that swallow the hook and break
the line, or of the hunted hare, being, beyond compari-
son, greater than those of insects destroyed in the usual
mode. With respect to utility, the sportsman, who,
though he adds indeed to the general stock of food, makes
amusement his primary object, must surely yield the
palm to the Entomologist, who adds to the general stock
of mental food, often supplies hints for useful improve-
m^ents in the arts and sciences, and the objects of whose
pursuit, unlike those of the former, are preserved and
may be applied to use for many years.

But in the view even of those few who think inhuma-
nity chargeable upon the sportsman, it will be easy to
place considerations w^hich may rescue the entomologist
from such reproof. It is well known that, in proportion
as we descend in the scale of bemg, the sensibility of
the objects that constitute it diminishes. The tortoise
walks about after losing its head ; and the Polypus, so
far from being mjured by the application of the knife,
thereby acquires an extension of existence. Insensibility
almost equally great may be found in the insect world.
This, indeed, might be inferred a priori, since Provi-
dence seems to have been more prodigal of insect life
tlian of tliat of anv other order of creatures, animalcula

OBJECTIONS AN.SWKUED. 55

perhaps alone excepted. No part ol" the creation is ex-
posed to the attack of so many enemies, or subject to so
many disasters; so that the few individuals of each khid
which enrich the valued nmseum of the entomologist,
many of which are dearer to him than gold or gems, are
snatched from the ravenous maw of some bird or fish or
rapacious insect ; would have been driven by tiic winds
into the waters and drowned ; or trodden underfoot by
jnan or beast, — for it is not easy, in some parts of the
year, to set foot to the ground without crushing these
minute anhnals ; and thus also, instead of being buried
in oblivion, they have a kind of immortality conferred
upon them. Can it be believed that the beneficent Crea-
tor, whose tender mercies are over all his works, would ex-
pose these helpless beings to such innumerable enemies
and hijuries, were they endued with the same sense of
pain and irritability of nerve with the higlier orders of
animals ?

But this inference is reduced to certainty, when we
attend to the facts which insects every day present to us,
proving that the very converse of our great poet's con-
clusion, as usually interpreted,

" The poor beetle that we tread upon,

111 corporal sutTerance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies,"

must be regarded as nearer the truth ^. Not to mention

» Shakespear's intention however in tiiis passage was evidently not,
as is often supposed, to excite compassion for the insect, but to
prove that

" 'file seobc of Death is most in apprehension,"

the actual pang being trilling. Pleasure for Measure, Act iii.
Scene 1.

56 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

the peculiar organization of insects, which strongly fa-
vours the idea I am inculcating, but which will be con-
sidered more properly in another place, their sang froid
upon the loss of their limbs, even those that we account
most necessary to life, irrefragably proves that the pain
they suffer cannot be very acute. Had a giant lost an
arm or a leg, or were a sword or spear run through his
body, he would feel no great inclination for running
about, dancing, or eating. Yet a crane-fly ( Tipula) will
leave half its legs in the hands of an unlucky boy who
has endeavoured to catch it, and will fly here and there
with as much agility and unconcern as if nothing had
happened to it ; and an insect impaled upon a pin will
often devour its prey with as much avidity as when at
liberty. Were a giant eviscerated, his body divided in
the middle, or his head cut off", it would be all over with
him ; he would uiove no more ; he would be dead to the
calls of hunger ; or the emotions of fear, anger, or love.
Not so our insects. I have seen the common cockchafer
walk about with apparent indifference after some bird
had nearly emptied its body of its viscera : a humble-
bee will eat honey with greediness though deprived of
its abdomen ; and I myself lately saw an ant, which had
been brought out of the nest by its comrades, walk when
deprived of its head. The head of a wasp will attempt
to bite after it is separated from the rest of the body ;
and the abdomen under similar circumstances, if the
finger be moved to it, will attempt to sting. And, what
is more extraordinary, the headless trunk of a male
Mantis has been known to unite itself to the other sex ',

' Di. Smith's Tour, i. 162. Journ. de Phm, xxv, 336.

OBJECTIONb ANSWERED. 57

These facts, out of hundreds that might be adduced, are
surely suflicient to prove that insects do not experience
the same acute sensations of pain with the higher orders
of animals, which Providence has endowed with more
ample means of avoiding them ; and since they were to
be exposed so universally to atUick and injury, this is a
most merciful provision in their favour; for, were it
otherwise, considering the wounds, and dismemberments,
iinil lingering deaths that insects often suflcr, what a vast
increase would tliere be of the general sum of pain and
misery ! You will now, I think, allow that the most hu-
mane person need not hesitate a moment, whether he
shall devote himself to the study of Entomology, on ac-
count of any cruelty attached to the pursuit.

But if some morbid sentimentalist should still exclaim,
*' Oh ! but I cannot persuade myself even ibr scientific
purposes to inflict the slightest degree of pain upon the
most insensible of creatures — " Pray, sir or madam, I
would ask, should your green-house be infested by
Aphides, or your grapery by the semianimate Coccus,
would this extreme of tenderness induce you to restrict
your gardener from destroying them ? Are you willing
to deny yourself these unnecessary gratifications, and to
resign your favourite flowers and fruit at the call of your
fine feelings? Or will you give up the shrimps, which
by their relish enable you to play a better part with your
bread and butter at breakfast, and thus, instead of add-
ing to it, contribute to diminish the quantity of food? If
not, I shall only desire you to recollect that, for a mere
personal indulgence, you cause the death of an infinitely
greater number of animals, than all the entomologists in
the world destroy for the promotion of science.

58 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

To these considerations, which I have no doubt you
will thmk conclusive as to the unreasonableness and in-
consistency of the objections made against (he study of
Entomology on the score of cruelty, I shall only add
that I do not intend them as any apology for other than
the most speedy and least painful modes of destroying
insects ; and these will be pointed out to you in a sub-
sequent letter. Every degree of unnecessary pain be-
comes cruelty, which I need not assure you I abhor ; and
from my own observations, however ruthlessly the ento-
mologist may seem to devote the few specimens wanted
for scientific purposes to destruction, no one in ordinary
circumstances is less prodigal of insect life. For my
own part, I question whether the drowning individuals,
which I have saved from destruction, would not far out-
number all that I ever sacrificed to science.

My next letter will be devoted to the metamotyhoses
of insects, a subject on which some previous explanation
is necessary to enable you to understand those distinc-
tions between their different states, which will be per-
petually alluded to in the course of our correspondence :
and having thus cleared die wa}', I shall afterwards pro-
ceed to the consideration of the injuries and bcyiefits of
which insects are the cause.

I am, &c.

LETTER 111.

METAMOBPIIOSES OF INSECTS.

Were a naturalist to announce to the world the dis-
covery of an animal which for the first five years of' its
life existed In tiie form of a serpent ; which then pene-
trating into the earth, and weaving a shroud of pure silk
of the finest texture, contracted itself within this covering
into a body without external mouth or limbs, and re-
sembling more than any thing else an Egyptian mummy ;
and which, lastly, after remaining in this state without
food and without motion for three years longer, should
at the end of that period burst its silken cerements,
struggle through its earthy covering, and start into day
a winged bird, — what think you would be the sensation
excited by this strange piece of intelligence ? After the
first doubts of its truth were dispelled, what astonish-
ment would succeed ! Amongst tlie learned, what sur-
mises ! — what investigations ! Amongst the vulgar, what
eager cm*iosity and amazement ! All would be interested
in the history of such an unheard-of phenomenon ; even
the most torpid would flock to the sight of such a pro-
digy.

But you ask, " To what do all these improbable sup-
positions tend ? " Simply to rouse your attention to the
mctamorpJioses of the insect world, almost as strange and
surprising, to which 1 am now about to direct your vie%v,

60 METAMORPHOSES.

miracles, which, though scarcely surpassed in sin-
gularity by all that poets have feigned, and though ac-
tually wrought every day beneath our eyes, are, because
of their commonness, and the minuteness of the objects,
unheeded alike by the ignorant and the learned.

That butterfly which amuses you with its aerial ex-
cursions, one while extracting nectar from the tube of
the honeysuckle, and then, the very image of fickleness,
flying to a rose as if to contrast the hue of its wings with
that of the flower on which it reposes — did not come
into the world as you now behold it. At its first exclu-
sion from the egg^ and for some months of its existence
afterwards, it was a worm-like caterpillar, crawling upon
sixteen short legs, greedily devouring leaves with two
jaws, and seeing by means of twelve eyes so minute as
to be nearly imperceptible without the aid of a micro-
scope. You now view it furnished with wings capable
of rapid and extensive flights : of its sixteen feet ten
have disappeared, and the remaining six are in most re-
spects wholly unlike those to which they have succeeded ;
its jaws have vanished, and are replaced by a curled-up
proboscis suited only for sipping li(juid sweets ; the form
of its head is entirely changed, — two long horns project
from its upper surface ; and, instead of twelve invisible
eyes, you behold two, very large, and composed of at
least twenty thousand convex lenses, each supposed to
be a distinct and effective eye !

Were you to push your examination further, and by
dissection to compare the internal conformation of the
caterpillar with that of the butterfly, you would witness
changes even more extraordinary. In the former you
would find some thousands of nniscies, which in the iat-

MF.TAMORPIiOSES. 6t

ter are replaced by others of a fonii and structure en-
tirely different. Nearly the whole body of the cater-
pillar is occupied by a capacious stomach. In the but-
terfly this has become converted into an almost imper-
ceptible thread-like viscus; and the abdomen is now
filled by two large packets of eggs, or other organs not
visible in the first state. In the former, two spirally-
convoluted tubes were filled with a silky gum ; in the
latter, both tubes and silk have almost totally vanished ;
and changes equally great have taken place in die eco-
nomy and structure of the nerves and other organs.

What a surprising transformation ! Nor was this all.
The chanjre from one form to the other was not direct.
An intermediate state not less singular intervened. After
casting its skin even to its very jaws several times, and
attaining its full growth, the caterpillar attached itself to
a leaf by a silken girth. Its body greatly contracted :
its skin once more split asunder, and disclosed an ovi-
form mass, without exterior mouth, eyes, or limbs, and
exhibiting no other symptom of life tlian a slight motion
when touched. In this state of death-like torpor, and
without tasting food, the insect existed for several months,
until at length the tomb burst, and out of a case not
more than an inch long, and a quarter of an inch in dia-
meter, proceeded the butterfly before you, which covers
a surface of nearly four inches square.

Almost every insect which you see has undergone a
transformation as singular and surprising, though varied
in many of its circumstances. That active little fly, now
an unbidden guest at your table *, whose delicate palate

■ " Ccenis etiani non vocatus ut Miisca aclvolo." Aristophon in
Pi/thagnrista apud Athencpuni. (Moiiftet. 5G.)

62 METAMORPHOSES.

selects your choicest viands, one wliile extending his
proboscis to the margin of a drop of wine, and then gaily
flying to take a more solid repast from a pear or a peach ;
now gamboling with his comrades in the air, now grace-
fully currying his furled wings with his taper feet, — was
but the other day a disgusting grub, without wings,
without legs, without eyes, wallowing, well pleased, in
the midst of a mass of excrement.

The " grey-coated gnat," whose humming salutation,
while she makes her airy circles about your bed, gives
terrific warning of the sanguinary operation in which she
is ready to engage, was a few hours ago the inhabitant
of a stagnant pool, more in shape like a fish than an in-
sect. Then to have been taken out of the water would
have been speedily fatal ; now it could as little exist in
any other element than air. Then it breathed through
its tail ; now through openings in its sides. Its shape-
less head, in that period of its existence, is now ex-
changed for one adorned with elegantly tufted antennae,
and furnished, instead of jaws, with an apparatus more
artfully constructed than the cupping-glasses of the phle-
botomist — an apparatus which, at the same time that it
strikes in the lancets, composes a tube for pumping up
the flowing blood.

The " shard-born beetle," whose " sullen horn," as
he directs his " droning flight " close past your ears in
your evening walk, calling up in poetic association the
lines in which he has been alluded to by Shakespeare,
Collins, and Gray, was not in his infancy an inhabitant
of air ; the first period of his life being spent in gloomy
solitude, as a grub, under the surface of the earth. — The
shapeless maggot, which you scarcely fail to meet with

METAMOnPIIOSES. G3

ill some one of every liaiuHul of nuts you crack, would
not always have grovelled in that humble state. If your
unlucky intrusion upon its vaulted dwelling had not left
it to jKM'ish in the wide world, it would have continued to
reside there until its full growth had been attained. Then
it would have gnawed itself an opening, and having en-
tered the earth, and passed a few months in a state of
inaction, would at length have emerged an elegant beetle
furnished with a slender and very long ebony beak : two
wings, and two wing-cases, ornamented with yellow bands;
six feet; and in every respect unlike the worm from which
it proceeded.

That bee but it is needless to multiply instances.

A sufficient number has been adduced to show, that the
apparently extravagant supposition with which I set out
may be paralleled in the insect world ; and that the me-
tamorphoses of its inhabitants are scarcely less astonish-
ing than would be the transformation of a serpent into
an eagle.

These changes I do not purpose explaining minutely in
this place : they will be adverted to more fully in subse-
quent letters. Here I mean merely to give you such a
general view of the subject as shall impress you with its
claims to attention, and such an explanation of the states
through which insects pass, and of the different terms
made use of to designate them in each, as shall enable
you to compreliend the frequent allusions which must be
made to them in our future correspondence.

The states through which insects pass are four: the
^SS ' ^^^ l(irva ; the pupa ; and the imago.

The first of these need not be here adverted to. In
the second, or immediately after the exclusion from the

64 METAMORPHOSES.

egg, they are soft, without wings, and in shape usually
somewhat like worms. This Linne called the larva
state, and an insect when in it a larva, adopting a Latin
word signifying a mask, because he considered the real
insect while under this form to be as it were masked.
In the English language we have no common term that
applies to the second state of all insects, though we
have several for that of different tribes. Thus we call
the coloured and often hairy larvae of butterflies and
moths caferpillars ,- the white and more compact larvae
of flies, many beetles, &c. grubs or viaggots^ ,• and the
depressed larvae of many other insects 'wo)-ms. The
two former terms I shall sometimes use in a similar
sense, rejecting the last, which ought to be confined to
true vermes ,• but I shall more commonly adopt Linne's
term, and call insects in their second state, larvce^.

In this period of their life, during which they eat
voraciously and cast their skin several times, insects
live a shorter or longer period, some only a few days
or weeks, others sevei;al months or years. They then
cease eating; fix themselves in a secure place; their
skin separates once more and discloses an oblong body,
and they have now attained the third state of their
existence.

From the swathed appearance of most insect's in this

• Gcnfils, or gentles, is a synonymous word employed by our old
authors, but is now obsolete, except with anglers. Thus Tusser, in
a passage pointed out to me by Sir Joseph Banks : —

" Rewerd not thy sheep when ye take offhis cote

With twitches and patches as brode as a grote;

Let not such ungentlenesse happen to thine

Least flie with her gen/i/s do make it to pine."

>> For different kinds of larvae, see Pi.atf.s XVIl. XVIIL XIX,

MKTA.Moni'irosns. 6.'>

fitixto. In which ihcv do not hndly rcsomble in miniature
a child trussed up hke a inunnny in swiuhllino- clothes,
aceordinn; to the haihaj'ous t'ashion onee prevalent here,
Jind still retained in ninny parts of the continent; I^iinie
has called it the pupa state, and an insect when under
this form a ])i/pa ,- — terms which will be here adopted in
the same sense. In this state, most insects eat no food ;
are incapable of locomotion ; and if opened seem filled
with a watery fluid, in whicli no distinct ort^ans can be
traced. Externally, liowever, the shape of the pupae of
different tribes varies considerably, and different names
have been applied to them.

Those of the beetle and bee tribes are covered with a
membranous skin, inclosing in separate and distinct
sheatlis the external organs, as the antennae, legs, and
wings, which are consequently not closely applied to
the body, but have their form for the most part clearly
distinguishable. To these Aristotle originally gave
the name of nymphcE *, which was continued by Swam-
nierdam and other authors prior to Linne, who calls
them incomplete pupae, and has been adopted by many
English writers on insects^.

ButteiHies, moths, and some of the two-winged tribe,
are in their pupa state also inclosed in a similar mem-
branous envelope ; but their legs, antennae, and wings,
are closely folded over the breast and sides; and the
whole body inclosed in a common case or covering of a
horny consistence, which admits a much less distinct
view of the organs beneath it. As these pupae are often
tinged of a golden colour, they were called from this

* Hist. Anim. I. h. c. 10. ^ Plate XVI. Fig. C— 9.

VOL. I. F

66 METAMOHPIIOSES.

cu'cunistance chrysa.iaes by the Greeks, and aurelia;
by the Romans, both which terms are in some measure
become anghcized; and though not strictly apphcable
to ungilded pupae, are now often given to those of all
lepidopterous insects'. These by Linne are denomi-
nated obtected pupa?*".

I have said that most insects eat no food in the pupa
state. This quahfication is necessary, because in the
mefamorphoses of insects, as in all her other operations,
nature proceeds by measured steps, and a very con-
siderable number (the tribe of locusts, cockroaches, bugs,
spiders, &c.) not only greatly resemble the perfect in-

" In explanation of the terms Lcpidoptera, Lepidopterous, Coleo-
ptera, &c. which will frequently occur in the following pages before
coming regularly to definitions, it is necessary here to state that they
have reference to the names given by entomologists to the dififerent
orders or tribes of insects, as under :

1 Colooptera consisting of Beetks. Plate I. Fig. 1 — 6.

2 Strcpsiptera of the genera Xenod and Stylops. Plate IL

Fig. 1.

3 Dennnptera of the Earurigs. Plate I. Fig. 7.

4 Orthoptcra of Cockroaches, Locusts, Grasshoppers,

Crickets, Spectres, Mantes, Sfc. Plate II. Fig. 2. 3.

5 Hemiptera consisting of Bugs, CicadcE, Water-scorpions, Watcr^

boat-men, Plant-lice, Cochineal Insects, &c. Plate II. Fig. 4. 5.

6 Trichoptera consisting of theT?^:'^ produced by the various species

of Case-worms, Phri/ganea, L. Plate III. Fig. 4.

7 Lepidoptera consisting of Butterfiies, Hawkmoths, and Moths.

Plate III. Fig. 1—3.

8 Ncuroptera consisting of Dragoii-flies, Ant-lions, Ephemertx, S^c.

Plate III. Fig. 5. C.

9 H^vienoptcra consisting of Bees, Wasps, and other insects armed

with a sthig or ovipositor, and its valves. Plate IV. Fig. 1 — 3.

10 Di^Jtov/ consisting of Flies, Gnats, and other two-winged insects.

Plate IV. Fig. 4. 5. Plate V. Fig. 1.

1 1 Aphaniptrra consisting of the Flea genus. Plate V. Fig. 2.

VZ Apt era oi Mites, Lice, Ikc. Plate V. Fig. 3-6.

Mh-ATi: XVI, Fic. 10-13.

Ml'.TA.MDIUMIOSKS. Gl

sect in form, but are ecjually capable with it of eatiiiir
and moving. As these insects, however, cast their skins
at stated periods, and undergo changes, though slight,
in their external and internal conformation, they are re-
garded also as being subject to metamorphoses. These
pupoe may be subdivided iiito two classes : first, those
comprised, with some exceptions, under the Linnean
Apfcra, which in almost every respect resemble the per-
fect insect, and were called by Linne complete pupa';
and secondly, those of the Linnean order Ilemiptaa,
which resemble the perfect insect, except in having only
the rudiments of wings, and to which the name o{ se?}ii~
complete pupa? was applied by Linne, and that of senii-
nymphs by some other authors *. There is still a fifth
kind of pupae, which are not, as in other instances, ex-
cluded from the skin of the larva, but remain concealed
under it, and were hence called by Linne coarctate pupiu.
These, which are peculiar to flics and some other dipte-
rous genera, may be termed cased-iiymjihs ^.

When, therefore, we employ the term jmpa, we may
refer indiilerently to the third state of any insect, the
particular order behig indicated by the context, or an
explanatory epithet. The terms chrysalis, (dropping au-
relia, which is supei"fluous,) nymph, semi-nymph, and
cased-7ujmph, on the other hand definitely pointing out
the particular sort of pupa meant: just as in Botany, the
common term pericarp applies to all seed-vessels, the
several kinds being designated by the names of capsule,
silicle, 8ic.

The envelope of cased-nymphs, which is formed of the
skin of the larva, considerably altered in form and tex-

* Plate XVI. Fig. 4. 5.' ^ Plate XVII. Fig. 1—4. .

V 2

68 -METAMORPHOSES.

ture, may be convenienth' called the puporiiim '" .■ but to
tlie artificial coverings of different kinds, whether of silk,
wood, or earth, &c. which many insects of the other
orders fabricate for themselves previously to assuming
the pupa state, and which have been called by different
writers, pods, cods, husks, and beans, I shall continue the
more definite French term cocon, anglicized into cocoon ''.

After remaining a shorter or longer period, some
species only a few hours, others months, others one or
more years, in the pupa state, the inclosed insect, now
become mature in all its parts, bursts the case which in-
closed it, quits the pupa, and enters upon the fourth and
last state.

We now see it (unless it be an apterous species) fur-
nished with wings, capable of propagation, and often
under a form altogether different from those which it has
previously borne — a perfect beetle, butterfly, or other
insect. This Linne termed the iinago state, and the
animal that had attained to it the imago ; because,
having laid aside its mask, and cast off its swaddling
bands, being no longer disguised or confined, or in any
respect imperfect, it is now become a true representative
or image of its species. This state is in general referred
to when an insect is spoken of without the restricting
terms larva or pupa.

Such being the singularity of the transformations of
insects, you will not think the ancients were so wholly
unprovided with a show of argument as we are accustom-
ed to consider them, for their belief in the possibility of
many of the marvellous metamorphoses which their
poets recount. Utterly ignorant as they were of modern
» PtATE XVII. Fig. 3. " Plate XVII. Fig. 5-- 10.

MKTAMOIU'llO.SE.S. 6D

physiological discoveries, the conversion of a caterpillar
into a butterfly, must have been ii iiict sullicient to put to
a nonplus all the sceptical oppugners of such transforma-
tions. And, however we may smile in this enlightened
age at the inference drawn not two centuries ago by Sir
Theodore Mayerne, the editor of Mouflet's work on in-
sects, " that if animals are transmuted so jnay metals ',"
it was not, in fact, with his limited knowledge on these
subjects, so very preposterous. It is even possible that some
of the wonderful tales of the ancients were grafted on the
changes which they observed to take place in insects. The
death and revivification of the phoenix, from the ashes of
which, before attaining its perfect state, arose first a "worm
(axwAr)^), in many of its particulars resembles what occurs
in the metamorphoses of insects* Nor is it very unlikely
that the doctrine of the metempsychosis took its rise from
the same source. M'hat argument would be thought by
those who maintained this doctrine more plausible in fa-
vour of the transmigration of souls, than the seeming re-
vivification of the dead chrysalis ? What more probable,
than that its apparent reassumption of life shoidd be ow-
ing to its receiving for tenant the soul of some criminal
doomed to animate an insect of similar habits with those
which had defiled his human tenement*^ ?

At the present day, however, the transformations of
insects have lost that excess of the marvellous, which

• Epist. Dedicat.

" " A priest who has drunk wine shall migrate into a moth or fly,
feeding on ordure. He who steals the gold of a priest shall pass a
thousand times into the bodies of spiders. If a man shall ^tcal honey,
he shall be born a great stinging gnat ; if oil, an oil-drinking beetle ;
if salt, a cicada ; if a household utensil, an ichneumon fly." Insiitufet
of j\Irnt', 353.

70 METAMORPHOSES.

might once liave furnished arguments for the fictions of
the ancients, and the dreams of Paracelsus. We call
them metamorphoses and transformations, because these
terms are in common use, and are more expressive of the
sudden changes that ensue tlian any new ones. But,
strictly, they ought rather to be termed a series of deve-
lopments. A caterpillar is not, in fact, a simple but a
compound animal, containing within it the germ of the
future butterfly, inclosed in what will be the case of the
pupa, which is itself included in the three or more skms,
one over the other, that will successively cover the larva.
As this increases in size these parts expand, present them-
selves, and are in turn thrown otf, until at length the
perfect insect, which had been concealed in this succes-
sion of masks, is displayed in its genuine form. That
this is the proper explanation of the phenomenon has
been satisfactorily proved by Swammerdam, Malpighi,
and other anatomists. The first-mentioned illustrious
naturalist discovered, by accurate dissections, not only
the skins of the larva and of the pupa incased in each
other, but within them the very butterfly itself, with its
organs indeed in an almost fluid state, but still perfect
in all its parts *. Of this fact you may convince yourself
without Swammerdam's skill, by plunging into vinegar
or spirit of wine a caterpillar about to assume the pupa
state, and letting it remain there a few days for the pur-
pose of giving consistency to its parts ; or by boiling it
in water for a few minutes. A very rough dissection will
then enable you to detect the future butterfly ; and you
^vill find that the wings, rolled up into a sort of cord, are

' Hlll'i Swamnu ii. :? 1. t. 37. L^^.-i,

METAMottl'flOSES. 71

lixlged between the first and seetnul .segment of the eator-
pillar; that the antenna- anil trunk ure coileil up in front
ofthelieail; and tliat the legs, however dHUrent liieir
fonn, are actually sheathed in its legs. Malpighi disco-
vered the eggs of the iiiturc moth, in the clirysalis of a
silkworm only a few days old *, anil Ueaunnu' those of
Bomhyx dispar even in tiie cater{)illar, and tiiat seven or
eiglit days before its change into the jinpa ''. A cater-
pillar, then, may be regarded as a locomotive egg, having
for its embryo the included butterfly, which after u cer-
tain period assimilates to itself the animal substances by
which it is surrounded ; has its organs gradually deve-
loped; and at length breaks through the shell which in-
closes it.

'lliis explanation strips the subject of every thing mi-
raculous, yet by no means reduces it to a shnplc or un-
interesting operation. Our reason is confounded at tiic
reflection that a larva, at first not thicker than a tlu'ead,
includes its own ti'iple, or sometimes octuple, teguments ;
the case of a chrysalis, and a butterfly, all curiously fold-
ed in each other; with an apparatus of vessels for breiith-
ing and digesting, of nerves for sensation, and of nmscles
for moving; and that these various forms of existence
will undergo their successive evolutions, by aid of a few
leaves received into its stomach. And still less able are
we to comprehend how this organ should at one time be
capable of digesting leaves, at another only honey ; how
one while a silky fluid should be secreted, at another
none ; or how organs at one period essential to the ex-
istence of the insect, should at another be cast ofK :^i\<\
the whole systejn which supported them vanish.

« Dc Bombi/rr, V3. ' " Reaum. i. ob'.K

72 METAMORPHOSES.

Nor does this explanation, though it precludes the
idea of that resemblance, in every particular, which, at
one time, was thought to obtain between the metamor-
phosis of insects, especially of the Lepidopiera order,
and the resurrection of the body, do away that general
analogy which cannot fail to strike every one who at
all considers the subject. Even Swammerdam, whose
observations have proved that the analogy is not so
complete as had been imagined, speaking of the meta-
morphosis of insects, uses these strong words : " This
process is formed in so remarkable a manner in butter-
flies, that we see therein the resurrection painted before
our eyes, and exemplified so as to be examined by our
hands ^." To see, indeed, a caterpillar crawling upon
the earth, sustained by the most ordinary kinds of food,
which, when it has existed a few weeks or months under
this humble form, its appointed work being finished,
passes into an intermediate state of seeming death, when
it is wound up in a kind of shroud and encased in a
coffin, and. is most commonly buried under the earth,
(though sometimes its sepulchre is in the water, and at
others in various substances in the air,) and after this
creature and others of its tribe have remained their de-
stined time in this death-like state, to behold earth, air,
and water, give up their several prisoners : to survey
them, when, called by the warmth of the solar beam,
they burst from their sepulchres, cast off their cerements,
from this state of torpid inactivity, come forth, as a bride
out of her chamber, — to survey them, I say, arrayed in
their nuptial glory, prepared to enjoy a new and more
exalted condition of life, in which all their powers are
" Hill's Swainm, i. I.,'/ a.

METAMOKl'UOSES. 73

developed, and tliey are arrived at the perfection of tlieir
nature ; when no longer confined to the earth they can
traverse the fields of air, their food is the nectar of
flowers, and love begins his blissful reign ; — who that
witnesses this interesting scene can help seeing in it a
lively representation of man in his threefold state of ex-
istence, and more esjiecially of that hap]\y day, when at
the call of the great Sun of Righteousness, all that are
in the graves shall come forth, the sea shall give up her
dead, and death being swallowed up of life, the nations
of the blessed shall live and love to the ages of eternity ?
But although the analogy between the dilT'erent states
of insects and those of the body of man is only general,
yet it is much more complete with respect to his soul.
He first appears in this frail body — a child of the earth,
a crawling worm, his soul being in a course oi" training
and preparation for a more perfect and glorious exist-
ence. Its course being finished, it casts off the earthy
body, and goes into a hidden state of being in Hades,
where it rests from its works, and is prepared for its
final consummation. The time for this being arrived,
it comes forth clothed with a glorious body, not like its
former, though germinating from it, for though " it was
sown an animal body, it shall be raised a spiritual body,"
endowed with augmented powers, faculties and privileges
commensurate to its new and happy state. And here
the parallel holds perfectly between the insect and the
man. The butterfly, the representative of the soul, is
prepared in the larva for its future state of glory; and if
it be not destroyed by the ichneumons and other ene-
mies to which it is exposed, symbolical of the vices that

74- METAMOni'HOSES.

destroy the spiritual life of the soul, it will come to its
state of repose in the pupa, which is its Hades ; and at
leugdi, when it assumes the imago, break forth with new
powers and beauty to its final glory and the reign of
love. So that in this view of the subject well might the
Italian poet exclaim ;

Non v' accorgete voi, che noi siani' vermi
Nati a formal' 1' angelica farfalla * ?

The Egyptian fable, as it is supposed to be, of Cupid
and Psyche, seems built upon this foundation. " Psyche,"
says an ingenious and learned writer, "means in Greek
the hmnan soul; and it means also a butterfly'', of which
apparently strange double sense the undoubted reason is,
that a butterfly was a very ancient symbol of the soul —
from the prevalence of this symbol, and the consequent
coincidence of the names, it happened that the Greek
sculptors frequently represented Psyche as subject to
Cupid in the shape of a butterfly ; and that e\'en when
she appears in their works under the human form, we
find her decorated with the light and filmy wings of that
gay insect *^.'^

The following beautiful little poem fells in so exactly
with the subject I have been discussing, tliat I cannot
resist the temptation I feel to copy it for you, especially

°- Do you not perceive that we arc caterpillars, born to fonn the
angelic butterfly ?

^ It is worthy of remark, that in the north and west of England
the moths that fly into candles ai'e called sanies (souls), perhaps from
the old notion that the souls of thetlead fly about at night in search
of light. For the same reason, probably, the common people in Ger-
many call them ghosts (geistchen).

'■ Narcs's Essays, i. 101-?.

METAMORPHOSES. 75

as I am not invare tliat il has appeared any where but in
a newspaper.

THE BUTTERFLY'S BIRTH-DAY,

BY THE AUTHOR OF " THE BUTTERf Ly's BALL."

The shades of night were scarcely fled ;

The air was mild, the winds were still ;
Anil slow the slanting sun-beams spread

O'er H'ood and lawn, o'er heath and hill :

From fleecy clouds of pearly hue

Had dropt a short but balmy shower,
That hung like gems of morning dew

On every tree and every flower :

And from the Blackbird's mellow throat

^Vas pour'd so loud and long a swell.
As echoed with responsive note

From mountain side and shadowy dell :

When bursting forth to life and light,

The offspring of enraptured May,
The Butterfly, on pinions bright,

Launch'd in full splendour on the day.

Unconscious of a mother's care,

No infant wretchedness she knew ;
But as she felt the vernal air,

At once to full perfection grew.

Her slender form, ethereal light.

Her velvet-textured wings enfold;
With all the rainbow's colours bright,

And dropt with spots of burnish'd gold.

Trembling with joy awhile she stood.

And felt the sun's enlivening ray ;
Drank from the skies the vital flood.

And " Quder'd at her pUmiuge gay .'

76 METAMORPHOSES,

And balanced oft her broider'd wings,
Thro' fields of air prepared to sail :

Then on her vent'rous journey springs.
And floats along the rising gale.

Go, child of pleasure, range the fields.
Taste all the joys that spring can give.

Partake what bounteous summer yields.
And live whilst yet 'tis thine to live.

Go sip the rose's fragrant dew.
The lily's honeyed cup explore.

From flower to flower the search renew.
And rifle all the woodbine's store :

And let me trace thy vagrant flight.
Thy moments too of short repose,

And mark thee then with fresh delight
Thy golden pinions ope and close.

But bark ! whilst thus I musing stand.
Pours on the gale an airy note.

And breathing from a viewless band.
Soft silvery tones around me float 5

— Tiiey cease — but still a voice I hear,
A whisper'd voice of hope and joy,

" Thy hour of rest approaches near,

" Prepare thee, mortal I— thou must die I

" Yet start not ! —on thy closing eyes
*' Another day shall still unfold,

" A sun of milder radiance rise,
" A happier age of joys untold.

" Shall the poor worm that shocks thy sight,
'• The humblest form in nature's train,

" Thus rise in new-bom ktstre bright,
" And yet the emblem teach in vain ?

METAMORPHOSES. 77

*• All ! wliere were once her golden eye->,

" Her glittering wings of purple priile ?
" Conceal'd beneath a rude disguise,

" A shapeless mass to earth allied.

" Like thee the hapless reptile lived,

*' Like thee he toil'd, like thee he spun,
" Like thine his closing hour arrived,

" His labour ceased, his web was done.
•* And shalt thou, number'd with the dead,

" No happier state of being know ?
" And shall no future morrow shed

•* On thee a beam of brighter glow ?

" Is this the boimd of power divine,

" To animate an insect frame ?
•' Or shall not He who moulded thine

" Wake at his will the vital flame ?

" Go, mortal ! in thy reptile state,

" Enough to know to thee is given ;
*' Ut), and the joyful truth relate;

" Frail child of earth ! high heir of lieaven ! "

A question here naturally presents itself — Why are
insects subject to these changes? For what end is it
that, instead of preserving like other animals * the same
general form from infancy to old age, they appear at one
period under a shape so different from that which they
fmally assume ; and why should they pass through an
intermediate state of torpidity so extraordinary ? I can

■ A few vertebrate animals, viz, frogs, toads, and newts, undergo
metamorphoses in some respects analogous to those of insects; their
first form as tadpoles being very different from that which they after-
wards assume. These reptiles too, as well as snakes, cast their skin
by an operation somewhat similar to that in larvts. There is no-
thing, however, in their metamorphoses at all resembling the pupa
state in insects.

78 METAMORPHOSES,

only answer that such is the will of the Creator, who
doubtless had the wisest ends in view, although we are
mcompetent satisfactorily to discover them. Yet one
reason for this conformation may be hazarded. A very
important part assigned to insects in the economy of na-
ture, as I shall hereafter show, is that of speedily re-
moving superabundant and decaying animal and vege-
table matter. For such agents an insatiable voracity is
an indispensable qualification, and not less so unusual
powers of multiplication. But these faculties are in a
great degree incompatible. An insect occupied in the
woi'k of reproduction could not continue its voracious
feeding. Its life, therefore, after leaving the egg^ is di-
vided into three stages. In the first, as lama, it is in a
state of sterility ; its sole object is the satisfying its in-
satiable hunger ; and, for digesting the masses of food
which it consumes, its intestines are almost all stomach.
This is usually by much the longest period of its ex-
istence. Having now laid up a store of materials for
the development of the future perfect insect, it becomes
a piipa ; and during this inactive period the important
process slowly proceeds, xminterrupted by the calls of
appetite. At length the perfect insect is disclosed. It
now often requires no food at all; and scarcely ever
more than a very small quantity; for the reception of
which its stomach has been contracted, in some instances,
to a tenth of its former bulk. Its almost sole object is
now the multiplication of its kind, from which it is di-
verted by no other propensity ; and this important duty
being performed, the end of its existence has been an-
swered, and it expires.

It must be confessed that some objections might be

METAMOIUMIOSES. 79

Uirown out a<^liist this livj)t)the.si.s, yet 1 think none tluit
would not nihuit of ;i plausible answer. To tliesc it is
foreign to my pur|K)so now to attend, and I sliaJl c<hi-
clude this letter by })ointinpr out to you tlie variety of
new relations which tJiis arrano^enient introduces into
nature. One individual unites in itself, in fact, thi-ec
sjieties, wliose niotles of existence are often as diflercnt
as those of the most distandy related animals of ot]ier
tribes. The same insect often lives successively in three
or four worlds. It is an inhal)itant of the water during
one i^criod ; of the fvirth (hn-in<jj another; and of thr air
during a diird ; and liited lor its various abodes by new
organs and instruments, and a new form in eacli. Think
(to use an illustration of Bonnet) but of the coco<)n of
tlie silk-worm ! How many hands, how man}- ninchines
does not this little bail put into motion ! Of wlial riches
should we not have been deprived, if the moth of tlie
silk-worm had been born a moth, without having been
previously a caterpillar! The domestic economy ofa Luge
portion of mankind would have been forjned on a plan
altogether different from that which no\r prevails.

I am, 8:c.

LETTER IV.

INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

DIRECT INJURIES.

In the letter which I devoted to the defence of Entomo-
logy, I gave yon reason to expect, more effectually to
obviate tlie objection drawn from the supposed insignifi-
cance of insects, that I should enter largely into the ques-
tion of their importance to us both as instruments of good
and evil. This I shall now attempt; and, as I wish to
leave upon your mind a pleasant impression with respect
to my favourites, I shall begin with the last of these sub-
jects— the injury which they do to us.

The Almighty ordains various instruments for the
punishment of offending nations : sometimes he breaks
them to pieces with the iron rod of war ; at others the
elements are let loose against them; earthquakes and
floods of fire, at his word, bring sudden destruction upon
them; seasons unfriendly to vegetation threaten them
with famine; the blight and mildew realize these threats;
and often, the more to manifest and glorify his power,
he employs means, at first sight, apparently the most in-
significant and inadequate to effect their ruin ; the nu-
merous tribes of insects are his armies *, marshalled by
him, and by his irresistible command impelled to the
work of destruction : where he directs them they lay
" Joel ii. 25.

DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 81

waste tlic earth, and fliminc and the pestilence often fol-
low in their train.

The generality of mankind overlook or disregard these
powerful, because minute, dispensers of punishment;
seldom considering in how many ways their welfare is
affected by them : but the fact is certain, that should it
please God to give them a general commission against
us, and should he excite them to attack, at the same time,
our bodies, our clothing, our houses, our cattle, and the
produce of our fields and gardens, we should soon be
reduced, in every possible respect, to a state of extreme
wretchedness ; the prey of the most filthy and disgusting
diseases, divested of a covering, unsheltered, except by
caves and dungeons, from the inclemency of the seasons,
exposed to all the extremities of want and farijine, and
in the end, as Sir Joseph Banks, speakuig on this sub-
ject, has well observed ', driven with all the larger ani-
mals from the face of the earth. You may smile, perhaps,
and think this a high-coloured picture, but you will re-
collect— I am not stating the mischiefs that insects com-
monly do, but what they would do according to all pro-
bability, if certain comiter-checks restraining them within
due limits had not been put in action ; and which they
actually do, as you will see, in particular cases, when
those comiter-checks are diminished or removed.

Insects may be said, without hyperbole, to have esta-
blished a kind of universal empire over the earth and its
inhabitants. This is principally conspicuous in the inju-
ries which they occasion, for nothing in nature that pos-
sesses or has possessed animal or vegetable life, is safe
from their inroads. Neither the cunning of the fox, nor

•» On the Blight in Corn, p. 9.
VOL. I. a

82 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

the swiftness of the horse or deer, nor the strength of the
buffalo, nor the ferocity of the Hon or tiger, nor the ar-
mour of the rhinoceros, nor the giant bulk or sagacity
of the elephant, nor even the authority of imperial man,
who boasts himself to be the lord of all, can secure them
from becoming a prey to these despised beings. The
air affords no protection to the birds, nor the water to
the fish ; insects pursue them all to their most secret
conclaves and strongest citadels, and compel them to
submit to their sway. Flora's empire is still more ex-
posed to their cruel domination and ravages ; and there
is scarcely one of her innumerable subjects, from the oak,
the glory of the forest, to the most minute lichen that
grows upon its trunk, that is not destined to be the food
of these next to nonentities in our estimation. And when
life departs from man, the mferior animals, or vegetables,
they become universally, sooner or later, the inheritance
of insects.

I shall principally bespeak your attention to the inju-
ries in question as they affect ourselves. These may be
divided into direct and indirect. By direct injuries I
mean every species of attack upon our own persons, and
by indirect, such as are made upon our property. To
the former of these I shall confine myself in the present
letter.

Insects, as to their direct attacks upon us, may be ar-
ranged in three principal classes. Those, namely, which
seek to make us their food ; those whose object is to
prevent or revenge an injury which they either fear, or
have received from us; and those which indeed offer us no
violence, but yet incommode us extremely in other ways.

DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 83

I hope I shall not too much offend your delicacy if I
begin the first class of our insect assailants with a very
disgusting genus, which Providence seems to have created
to punish inattention to personal cleanliness. But though
tliis pest of man must not be wholly j^assed over, yet,
since it is unfortunately too well known, it will not be at
all necessary for me to enlarge upon its history. I shall
only mention one flict which shows the astonishingly rapid
mcrease of these animals, where they have once gotten
possession. It is a vulgar notion, that a louse in twenty-
four hours may see two generations ; but this is rather
overshooting the mark. Leeuwenhoek, whose love for
science overcame the nausea that such creatures are apt
to excite, proves that their nits or eggs are not hatched
till the eighth day after they are laid, and that they do
not themselves commence laying before they are a month
old. He ascertained, however, that a single female louse
may, in eight weeks, witness the birth of five thousand
descendants ^. You remember how wolves were extir-
pated fi'om this country, but perhaps never suspected any
monarch of imposing a tribute of lice upon his subjects.
Yet we are gravely told that in Mexico and Peru such a
poll-tax was exacted, and that bags full of these treasures
were found in the palace of Montezuma '^ I ! ! Were our
own taxes paid in such coin, what little grumbling would
there be !

Two other species of this genus, besides the common
louse, are, in this country, parasites upon the human
body But already I seem to hear you exclaim, " Why

* Lccuw. Epist. 98. 1096.

" Binglev, Anim. Bingr. first edition, iii. 437. St. Pierre's Studies,
&c. i. 311?."

G 2

«4* DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

dwell SO long on creatures so odious and nauseating,
whose injuries are confined to the prqfanum vulgus ?
Leave them therefore to the canaille — they are nothing
to us." Not so fast, my friend — recollect what historians
and other writers have recorded concerning the Phthi-
riasis or pedicular disease, and you must own that, for
the quelling of human pride, and to pull down the high
conceits of mortal man, this most loathsome of all mala-
dies, or one equally disgusting, has been the inheritance
of the rich, the wise, the noble, and the mighty ; and in
the list of those that have fallen victims to it, you will
find poets, philosophers, prelates, princes, kings, and
emperors. It seems more particularly to have been a
judgement of God upon oppression and tyranny, whether
civil or religious. Thus the inhuman Pheretima men-
tioned by Herodotus, Antiochus Epiphanes, the Dicta-
tor Sylla, the two Herods, the Emperor Maximin, and,
not to mention more, the great persecutor of the Pro-
testants, Philip the Second, were carried off by it.

I say by this malady, w one equally disgusting^ be-
cause it is not by any means certain, though some learn-
ed men have so supposed, that all these instances, and
others of a similar nature, standing also upon record
are to be referred to the same specific cause ; since there
is very sufficient reason for thinking that at least three
different descriptions of insects are concerned in the va-
rious cases that have been handed down to us under the
common name of Phthiriasis. As the subject of maladies
connected with insects, or produced by them, is both cu-
rious and interesting, although no writer, that I am
aware of, has given it full consideration, and at the same
time falls in with my general design, I hope you will not

DIRECT INJUUIEK CAUSED BY INSECTS. 85

regard me as guilty of presumption, and of intruding
into the province of medical men, if I enter rather largely
into it, and state to you the reasons that have induced
me to embrace the above hypothesis, leaving you full li-
berty W reject it if you tlo not find it consonant to reason
and fact. The three kinds of insects to which I allude,
as concerned in cases that have been deemed Phthiriasis,
are lice {Pedicidi, h.), mites {Acari, L.), and Larva; in
general.

As far as the habits of the genus Pedicultis, whether
inhabiting man or the inferior animals, are at present
known, it does not appear, from any well asceitained fact,
that the species belonging to it are ever subaitaneous.
For this observation, as far as it relates to man, I can
produce the highest medical authority. " The louse feeds
on the surface of the skin," says the learned Dr. Mead
in his Medica Sacra ,- and Dr. Willan, in his palmary
work on Cutaneous Diseases, remarks with respect to the
body-louse, " that the nits, or eggs, are deposited on the
small hairs of the skin," and that " the animals are found
on the skin, or on the linen, and not mider the cuticle,
as some authors have represented." And he further ob-
sei'ves, that " many marvellous stories are related by Fo-
restus, Schenkius and others respecting lice bred under
the skin, and discharged in swarms from abscesses, stru-
mous ulcers, and vesications. The mode in which Pe-
diculi are generated being now so well ascertained, no
credit can be given to these accoimts." Thus far this
great man, who however supposes (in which opinion Dr.
Bateman concurs with him) that the authors to whom he
alludes had mistaken for lice some other species of insects,
which are not imfrequently found in putrefactive sores.

86 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

If these observations be allowed their due weight, it
will follow, that a disease produced by animals residing
under the cuticle cannot be a true Phthiriasis, and there-
fore the death of the poet Alcman, and of Pherecydes
Syrius the philosopher, mentioned by Aristotle, must
have been occasioned by some other kind of insect. For,
speaking of the lice to which he attributes these cata-
strophes, he says that " they are produced m the flesh in
small pustule-like tumours, which have no pus, and fi'om
wliich, when punctured, they issue ^." For the same
reason, the disorder which Dr. Heberden has described
in his Commentaries, from the communications of Sir E.
Wilmot, under the name of Morbus pedicularis, must
also be a diiferent disease, smce, with Aristotle, he like-
wise represents the insects as inhabiting tumours, from
which they may be extracted when opened by a needle.
He says, indeed, that in every respect they resemble the
common lice, except in being whiter ; but medical men,
who were not at the same time entomologists, might ea-
sily mistake an Acarus for a Pediculus^.

Dr. Willan, in one case of Prurigo senilis, observed a
number of small insects on the patient's skin and linen.
They were quick in their motion, and so minute that it
required some attention to discover them. He took them
at first for small Pediculi ; but under a lens they appeared
to him rather to be a nondescript species of Pulex ^ ; yet
the figure he gives has not the slightest likeness to the.

* Hist. Animal. 1. 5. c. 31.

** From tlie terms employed by Aristotle and Dr. Mead in their
Account of these cases, it appears that the animal they meant could
not be maggots, but something bearing a more general resemblance
to lice.

•^ On Cutaneous Diseases, 87, 88 ; and t. 7. /. 4.

DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 87

latter genus, while it bears a striking resemblance to the
former. It is not clear whether his draughtsman meant
to represent the insect with six or with eight legs : if it
had only six, it was probably a Pediculus ; but if it had
eight, it would form a new genus between the Acaridce
and the hexapod Aptera. Dr. Bateman, in reply to some
queries put to him, at my request, by our common and
lamented friend Dr. Reeve, relates that he understood
from Dr. Willan, in conversation, that the hisect in ques-
tion jmnped in its motion. This circumstance he regards
as conclusive against its being a Pediculus ; but such a
consequence does not necessarily follow, since it not sel-
dom happens that insects of the same genus either have
or have not tliis faculty ; for instance, Cyphon hemisphac-'
ricus^ Acarus Scahici, &c.

Dr. Willan has quoted with approbation two cases from
Amatus Lusitanus, which he seems to think correctly de-
scribed as Phthiriasis. In one of them, however, which
terminated fatally, the circumstances seem rather hyper-
bolically stated — I mean, where it is said that two black
servants had no other emplojrment than carrying baskets
full of these insects to the sea ! ! Perhaps you will think
I draw largely upon your credulity if I call upon you to
believe this ; I shall therefore leave you to act as you
please. — Thus much for pure Phthiriasis, which term
ought to be confined to maladies produced by lice. I
shall only further observe, that as many species as exist
of these, which are the causes of disease, so many kinds
of Phthiriasis will there be.

Acari, or mites, are the next insect sources of disease
in the human species, and that not of one, but probably

88 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

of many kinds both local and general. They are distin-
guished fi'om Pediculi not only by their fonn, but also
often by their situation, since they frequently establish
themselves under the cuticle. With respect to local dis-
orders, Dr. Adams conjectures that Acari may be the
cause of certain cases of Ophthalmia. Sir J. Banks, in a
letter to that gentleman, relates that some seamen be-
longing to the Endeavour brig, being tormented with a
severe itching roimd the extremities of the eyelids, one
of them was cured by an Otaheitan woman, who with
two small splmters of bamboo extracted from between
the cilia abmidance of very minute lice, which were
scarcely visible without a lens, though their motion, when
laid on the thumb, was distinctly perceived. These in-
sects were probably synonymous with the Ciron despau-
pieres of Sauvages^. — Le Jeune, a French physician
quoted in MoufFet, describes a case, in which what seems
a different species, since he calls them rather large, in-
fested the white of the eye, exciting an intolerable itch-
ing''.— Dr. Mead, from the German Ephemei'ides, gives
an account pf a woman suckling her child, from whose
breast proceeded very minute vermicles*^. These were
probably Acari, and perhaps that species, which, from
its feeding upon milk, Linne denominates A. Lactis. The
great author last mentioned describes an insect, a native
of America, under the name of Pedicidus Ricinoides,
which, upon the authority of Rolander, he informs us,
gets into the feet of people as they walk, sucks their blood,

•^ On Morbid Poisons, 306, 307. " Mouffet, 267.

^ Medica Sacra, 104, 105.

DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. tJ9

oviposits* ill tliem, and so occasions very dangerous ul-
cers. It woukl be an Acarus, he observes, but it has
only six legs. Now Hermann affinns, that some species
of Trombidium (a genus separated by Fabricius from
Acariis) have in no state more than six legs^. Others of
the tribe of Acaridtc, and the insect in (|uestion amongst
the rest, may be similarly circumstanced ; or those that
liolander examined might have been larvae, which in this
tribe are usually hexapods.

Linne appears to have been of opinion that many con-
tagious diseases are caused by Acari *=. How far he was
justified in this opinion I shall not here inquire; facts
alone can decide the question, and observations made by
men acquainted with Entomology as well as the science
of diseases. Considerable deference and attention, how-
ever, are certainly due to the sentiments of so great a
naturalist, in Avhom these necessary qualifications were
united in no common degree. With respect to the dys-
entery and the itch, he affirms that this had been mani-
fested to his eyes. You will wish probably to know the
arguments that may be adduced in confirmation of this
opinion ; I will therefore endeavour to satisfy you as well
as I am able. The following history given by Linne seems
to prove the dysentery connected with Acari.

Rolander, a student in Entomology, while he resided

'■' It is to be hoped this new word may be admitted, as the laying
of eggs cannot otherwise be expressed without a periphrasis. For
the same reason its substantive Oviposit'ion will be employed.

" Mem. Apterologique, 19.

c Insecta ejusmodi minutissima, forte Acaros diversae speciei causas
esse divcrsorum morborum contagiosorum, ab analogia ct experientia
hactcnus acquisita, facili credimus negotio. Amocn. Ac, v. 94.

90 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

in the house of the illustrious Swede, was attacked by the
disease in question, which quickly gave way to the usuaL
remedies. Eight days after, it returned again, and was
as before soon removed. A third time, at the end of the
same period, he was seized with it. All the while he had
been living like the rest of the famil}^, who had neverthe-
less escaped. This, of course, occasioned no little inquiry
into the cause of what had happened. Linnc, aware that
Bartholinus had attributed the dysentery to insects^ which
he professed to have seen, recommended it to his pupil
to examine his feces. Rolander, following this advice,
discovered in them innumerable animalcules, which upon
a close examination proved to be Acari. It was next a
question how he alone came to be singled out by them ;
and thus he accounts for it. It was his habit not to drink
at his meals ; but in the night, growing thirsty, he often
sipped some liquid out of a vessel made of juniper wood.
Inspecting this very narrowly, he observed, in the chinks
between the ribs, a white line, which, Avhen viewed under
a lens, he found to consist of innumerable Acari, pre-
cisely the same with those that he had voided. Various
experiments were tried with them, and a preparation of
rhubarb was found to destroy them most effectually. He
afterwards discovered them in vessels containing acids,
and often mider the bung of casks =*. In the instance
here recorded, the dysentery, or diarrhoea, was evidently
produced by these Acari ; but it would be going too far,
I apprehend, to assert that they are invariably the cause
of that disease. ^

That Scabies, or the itch, is occasioned by an Acarus

" Amaiu Ac. v. 94-98.

DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 91

Is not a doctrine peculiar to the moclerns. Moufl'f t men-
tions Abinzoar, called also Avenzoar, a celebrated His-
pano- Arabian physician of Seville, who flourished in the
twelfth century, as the most ancient author that notices
it. He calls these Acari little lice that creep under the
skin of the hands, lei^s, and feet, exciting pustules lull of
fluid *. Joubert, quoted by the same author, describes
them under the name of Siroiics or mites, as always behig
concealed beneath the epidermis, inider which they creep
like moles, gnawing it, and causing a most troublesome
itching. It appears that MoulTet, or whoever was the
author of that part of the Thcatrum Inseciorum, was him-
self also well acquainted with these animals, since he re-
marks that their habitation is not in the pustule but near
it: a remark afterwards confirmed by Linne**, and more
recently by Dr. Adams '^. In common with the former
of these authors, Mouffet further notices the effect of
warmth upon them in exciting motion'*. Our intelligent
countryman also observes that they cannot be Pediculi,
since they live under the cuticle, which lice never do<^.
In the epistle dedicatoiy, the editor speaks also of these
Acari as living in burrows which they have excavated in
the skin near a lake of water ; from which if they be ex-

» Mouffet, 266.

'' Acarus sub ipsa pustula niinimc qiia;renJiis est, seel longius re-
cessit, scquendo rugam cuticulse obscrvatur. Aman. Ac. v. 95. not.**.

"^ ObservationSy &c. 290.

'' Extractus acu ct super ungue positus, movct sc si solis etiam ca-
lore adjuvctur. ubi siipr. Ungui inipositus vix niovetur : si vcro oris
caliilo halitu afflctur, agills in ungue cursitat. Fn. Succ. 1975.

'- Nequc Syrones isti sunt de pcdiculoruni genere, ut Johannes
Langius ex Aristotcle videtur assererc: nam illi exti'a cutciu vivunt,
hi vcro non. ubi supr.

92 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

tracted with a needle and put upon the nail, they show
in the sun their red head and the feet with which they
walk*. And to close my veteran authorities, Junius thus
explains the word Acarus, as I find him quoted in Gould-
man's useful dictionary, " A small worm, which eats
under the skin, and makes burrows in itching hands ^."
In more modern times, microscopical figures have been
added to descriptions of the insect. Bonomo first fur-
nished this valuable species of elucidation. His figures,
however, which are copied by Baker in his work on the
microscope, are far from accurate *=. Those of De Geer
and Dr. Adams are much more satisfactory, and mutually
confirm each other''. From them it is evident that the
same insect inhabits the scabies of Sweden and Madeira.
Dr. Bateman, in the letter before alluded to, informs his
correspondent, that he had seen that fi'om Madeu'a, and
gives it as his opinion, that there cannot be a doubt of
the existence of an Acarus Scabiei ; an opinion which he
repeats in his late work on Cutaneous Diseases; and
which, according to Hermann^, has been also rendered
unquestionable by Wichmann in his Etiologie de la Gale
(Hanovre 1786), a work I have not had an opportunity
of consulting. From all this we may regard the point

•^ Imo ipsi Acari prae exiguitate indivisibiles, ex cuniculis prope
aquae lacum qiios foderunt in cute, acu extract! et ungue impositi,
caput rubrum, et pedes quibus gradiuntur ad soleni produnt. p. vi.

** Teredo sive exiguus vermiculus, qui subter cutim erodit agitque
cuniculos in pruriginosis manibus. Gouldman tells us these Acari
were also called Hand-worms. Another English name is given in
MoufFet, viz. Wheale-worms.

*^ Osservazioni intorno a pellicelli del corpo uviano fatte dal Dottor
Gio Cosimo Bonomo, &c./. 1-3. Baker On Microsc. i. /. 13./. 2.

*! De Geer, vii. t. 5./. 1^-14.

* Mem, Ajjterologique, 79.

DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 93

as SO far settled, that such an animal exists at least as an
occasional concomitant of scabies.

This fact bein<r ascertained, a more complex in(|uiry
remains, which branches out into two distinct (|uestions.
Is scabies always produced by these insects? Or, if this
be not the case, Is the animalc scabies a distinct disease
from the iiuinimatc ?

It is very remarkable that Linne, a })hysician as well
as a naturalist ; and De Geer, one of the most accurate
observers that ever existed ; should both assign the insect
in question as the uiuloubted cause of the common scabies
of their country ; the one a})plying to the disease he was
speaking of the epithet of communissima, and observing
the fact to be notorious, [cuique liquet,) and the other de-
signating it by its well known French name "Z,a Gale^."
And is it not equally remarkable that such men as John
Hunter, Dr. Heberden, Dr. Bateman, Dr. Adams, and
Mr. Baker, should never, in this country, have been able
to meet with it ? Did it indeed exist in our common sca-
bies, it seems impossible that it could have escaped the
observation of the two last of these gentlemen; Dr. Adams
being so well qualified to detect it from his observations
in Madeira, and Mr. Baker from his expertness in mi-
croscopical researches. Dr. Bateman, in the letter above
quoted, says, " I have hunted it with a good magnifier,
in many cases of itch, both in and near the pustules, and
in the red streaks or furrows, but always without success."
In his work on Cutaneous Diseases he tells us, however,
that he has seen it, in one instance, when it had been

* I am informed by my learned friend Alexander MacLeay, Esq.
Secretary to the Linnean Society, that, in the north of Scotland, the
insect of the itch is well known, and easily discovered and extracted.

94. DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

taken from the diseased surface by another practitioner.
And tliough Dr. Willan in his book speaks of the Aca-
rus as the concomitant of this disease, yet his learned
friend just mentioned observes, that he admitted that the
insect was not to be found in ordinary cases, and indeed
never seemed to have made up his mind upon the subject.
When I was at Norwich in 1812, Dr. Reeve very kindly
accompanied me to the House of Industry there, to ex-
amine a patient whose body was very full of the pustules
of this disorder; but though we used a good magnifier,
we could discover nothing like an insect. I must observe,
however, that our examination was made in December,
in severe weather, when the cold might, perhaps, render
the animal torpid, and less easy to be discovered.

From the above facts it seems fair to infer that this
animal is not invariably the cause of scabies, but that
there are cases with which it has no connexion. Now,
from this inference, would not another also follow, that
the disease produced by the insect is specifically distinct
from that in which it cannot be found ? Sauvajjes and
Dr. Adams are both of this opinion ^, the former assign-
ing to it the trivial name of vermicularis ; and the latter
proving, by very satisfactory arguments, that it is different
from the other. If they were both animate diseases, but
derived from two distinct species of animals, (for it seems
not impossible that even our common itch may be caused
by an Acarus more minute than the other, and so more
difficult to find,) they would properly be considered as
distinct species ; much more, therefore, if one be animate

' This opinion Dr. Bateman thinks probably the true one. Cutan.
Dis. 197.

DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 95

and tlie other inmiimate. Nay this, I should think, would
lead to a doubt whether even their gams were the same.
I shall dismiss this part of- my subject with the mention
of a discovery of Dr. Adams, which seems to have es-
caped both Linnc and De Geer — that the Acanis Scabici
is endowed with the faculty of leaping ; (in this respect
resembling tJie insect found by Willan in Prurigo senilis
mentioned above;) for which purpose its four posterior
thighs are incrassated".

But besides these Acarine diseases, there seems to be
one (unless with Linne we regard the plague as of this
class'') more fearful and fatal than them all. You will,
perhaps, conjecture I am speaking of that described by
Aristotle and Sir E. Wilmot as the Phthiriasis, and your
conjecture will be right. But some think, and tliose men
of merited celebrity, that Acari have nothing to do in
tliese and similar cases, for that inaggots were the para-
sites mistaken for lice. This, from the passage above
quoted, appears to have been Dr. Willan's opinion, to
which, in the letter so often referred to, Dr. Batcman
subscribes ; adding as a reason for excluding Acari from
being concerned, that " they are too minute, and never
have been seen in such numbers as to be mistaken for
lice." But both Acari and Pediculi vary in size, some
of the former being larger than some of the latter. And
allowing them to be ever so minute, yet Avhen they issue
in swarms, as mites from a cheese, they would be very
visible, were it only from their motion. Besides, as they
are furnished with legs, their motions resemble those of

* Probably this Acarus in the modern system would form a distinct
genus. Latreille places it in his Sarcoptcsw'ith the Ac. j)ftssertnus, L.
Latr. Gen. i. 152. 2. *• Amirn, Ac. ubi supr. 101.

96 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

lice infinitely more than do the contortions of maggots.
So that an Acarus would be deemed a louse much sooner
by an unentomological observer than would a maggot.
Whether Acari have ever been seen in such numbers as
to be mistaken for lice, is the point in question ; and
therefore, by itself, cannot be admitted for a valid argu-
ment. Though Acarus Scahiei does not appear to swarm
in ordinary cases, yet this is certamly no reason why
other species may not do so. Where it has once made
a settlement, how incredibly, and in how short a space
of time, does the Siro or cheese-mite multiply ! Acarus
Destructor and many other species are equally rapid in
their increase. — Millions of lice are said by Lafontaine,
whom Hermann calls a very exact describer, to show
themselves in Plica j)olo?iica, on the third day of the dis-
ease * ; but whether the last-mentioned author be correct
in thinking it more probable that they are Acari ^, I
have not the means of judging.

I shall now produce two instances where Acari were
evidently concerned. Dr. Mead, from the German JEphe-
merides, relates the miserable case of a French nobleman,
from whose eyes, nostrils, mouth, and urmary passage
animalcules of a red colour, and excessively minute,
broke forth day and night, attended by the most horrible
and excruciating pains, and at length occasioned his
death. The account further says, that they were pro-
duced fi'om his corrupted blood. This was probably a
fancy originating in their red colour: but the whole his-
tory, whether we consider the size and colour of the ani-
mals, or the places fi'om which they issue, is inapplicable

• Traites de Chirurgie, &c. Leipsig. 1792. ^ Mem. Apterolog. 78..

DlIlKcr INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 97

to lan\c ov magirots, unci agrees very well with Acari,
SDine ol" which, partieularly A. autnmnalis^ are of a bright
red colour. The otiier case, and a very similar one, is
tliat recorded by INIouffet of Lady Penruddock ; con-
cerning whom he expressly tells us, that Acari swarmed
in every part of her body — her head, eyes, nose, lips,
gums, the soles of her feet, &c., tormenting her day and
night, till, in spite of every remetly, all the flesh of her
body being consumed, she was at lengtli relieved by death
from this terrible state of suffering. Mouffet attributes
lier disease to the Acarus Scabici ; 'hut from the sym-
ptoms and fatal result it seems to have been a different
and much more terrific animal. He supposes, in this
instance, the insect to have been generated by drinking
goat's milk too copiously. This, if correct, would lead
to a conjecture that it might have been the A. Lactis, L.

These cases I hope will satisfy you that Acari, as well
as Pediculi, are the cause of diseases in the human frame.
This, indeed, as has been before observed, is allowed on
all hands with respect to that of the itch ; and it is, cer-
tainly, not more improbable that man should be exposed
to the attack of several species of this genus, than that
three or four kinds of Pediculus should infest him. If
you are convinced by what I have written, you will con-
cur with me in thinking that the one are as much en-
titled to give their name to the disease which they pro-
duce as the other ; and the term Acariasts, by which,
with due deference to medical men, I propose to distin-
guish generically all acarine diseases, will not be refused
its place amongst your Genera Morhorum.

I shall now proceed to the remaining class of diseases
mistaken for Phthiriasis ; those, namely, which are pro-

VOL. I. H

98 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

duced by larva. There are two terms employed by an-
cient authors, Fmla (EvXat) and Scolex (SxcoXri^), -which
seem properly to denote larvae ; but there is often sucli a
want of precision in the language of writers unacquaint-
ed with Natural History, that it is very difficult to make
out what objects they mean ; and expressions which,
strictly taken, should be understood of larvae, may pro-
bably sometimes have been used to denote the cause of
either the pedicular or acarine disease. Eulce, which
term, though given by Hesychius as synonymous with
Scolex, is by Plutarch used as of different import ^, seems
properly to mean those larvae which are generated in
dead carcases, at least so Homer has more than once
applied it ^ : it is therefore a word of a much more re-
stricted sense than Scolex, which probably belongs to the
larvae of every order of insects ; for so Aristotle employs
it, when he says that all insects produce a Scolex, or are
larviparous ^. Yet when Homer compares Hai'palion
stretched dead upon the ground to a Scolex '*, it should
seem as if he used the word for an earth-worm, which
Aristotle commonly calls by a figurative periphrasis,
" Entrails of the earth ^." In the Holy Scriptures this
word is used to signify larvae which prey upon and are
the torment of living bodies '^. It may on this account,
perhaps, be regarded as generally meaning such larvae,
to whatever order or genus they belong.

Dr. Mead, therefore, is most probably right when he
considers the disease stated by the ancients to be caused

• In Artaxerx. •> //. ;<;. 1. 599. u. 1. 414.

•^ Toe, Zi svTO/^x TTXvrct i7KO)7^yiKor<iKii. De Geriernt. Aniiyial. 1. 2. C. 1.
<» I/.v. 1.654-5.

* Tvig ivn^ci- De Animal. Incetsu, c. 9. De General. Animal. 1 . 3. c. 1 1 .
f Mark ix. 44. 46. 48.

DlllEcr INJL'UIES CAUSED JIY iNSEl.TS. 99

by FaiIcC or Scoleches, commonly tian.slati.'tl woi'ms, as
tlistinct tVoin Plilliiiiasis ; and it" so, the inliiinian Phc-
retima, who swarnictl with EuUc^ and 1 Irrod At^rippa,
wlu) WHS eaten of Sculechcs^^ were j)ic»bal)ly neillier of
them destroyed either by Pediculi or Acari, but by
larvae or maggots. And when Galen prescribed a re-
medy for ulcers inhabited bv Scolcc/ns, observini/ that
animals similar to those generated by putrid substances
are often found in abscesses, he probably meant the same
thing. The proper appellation of this gvims of diseases
would be Scolcc/iiasis.

This dissertation may perhaps appear to you rather
prolix and tedious: 3'et to settle the meaning of terms is
of the first importance. To inquire what ancient writers
intended by the words which they employ, and whether
such as have been usually regarded as synonymous are
really so, may often furnish us with a clue to some useful or
intercstinfT truth ; and not seldom enable us to rescue their
reputation from much of the censure which has been in-
considerately cast upon it. Because they did not know
every thing, or so much as we do, we are too apt to think
that they knew nothing. That they fell into very con-
siderable errors, especially in subjects connected with
Natural History, cannot be denied ; but then it ought
to be considered that they possessed scarcely any of
those advantages by which we are enabled to penetrate
into nature's secrets. The want of the microscope alone
was an effectual bar to their progress in this branch of
science. Yet, in some instances, w hen they took a ge-
neral view of a subject, they appear to have had very
correct ideas. This observation particularly applies to

• 2;««x »xoef <uTOf. Acts xii. 23.
H 2

100 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

tlie philosopher of Stagyra, whose mighty mind and lyn-
cean eye, in spite of those mists of prejudice and fable
that enveloped the age in which he lived, enabled him in
part to pierce through the gloom, and comprehend and
behold the fair outline that gives symmetry, grace and
beauty to the whole of nature's form, though he mistook,
or was not able to trace out, her less prominent features
and minor lineaments.

It is now time to return from this long digression,
which however is closely connected with the subject of
this letter, to the point from which I deviated. Taking
my leave of the disgusting animals which gave rise to
it, I proceed to call your attention to another of our
pygmy tormentors, which, in the opinion of some, seems
to have been regarded as an agreeable rather than a re-
pulsive object. " Dear Miss," said a lively old Lady
to a friend of mine, (who had the misfortune to be con-
fined to her bed by a broken limb, and was complaining
that the fleas tormented her,) "don't you Y\k.ejleas?
Well, I think they are the prettiest little merry things
in the world. — I never saw a dull flea in all my life."
The celebrated Willughby kept a favourite flea, which
used at stated times to be admitted to suck the palm of
his hand ; and enjoyed this privilege for three months,
when the cold killed it. And Dr. Townson, from the
encomium which he bestows upon these vigilant little
vaulters, as supplying the place of an alarum and driving
us from the bed of sloth, should seem to have regarded
them with feelings much more complacent than those of
Dr. Clarke and his friends, when their hopes of passing
*' one night free from the attapks of vermin " were

DIRKCT lN".JUHIi:S tAUSF.I) IIY INSECIS. 101

cliangcd into despair by the information of the laughing
JSheik, that *' the king of the fleas held his court at Ti-
berias:" or than those of MM. Lewis and Clarke, who
found tiieni more tormenting than all the other plagues
of the Missouri country, where they sometimes compel
even the natives to shift their (juarters. If you un-
happily view them in this unfavourable light, and have
found ordinary methods unavailing for ridding yourself
of these unbidden guests ; I can furnish you with a pro-
baturn est recipe, which tiic first-mentioned traveller tells
us the Ilungarian shepherds (who seem to liave been stu-
pidly insensible to their value as alarums) lind com-
pletely effectual to put to flight these insects and their
neighbom-s the lice. This is not, as you may be tempted
to think, by a remarkable attention to cleanliness. —
Quite the reverse. — They grease their linen with hog's
lard, and thus render themselves disgusting even to
fleas ! If this does not satisfy, I have another recipe in
store for you. You may shoot at them with a cannon,
as report says did Christina Queen of Sweden, whose
piece of artillery, of Lilii)utian calibre, which was em-
ployed in this warfare, is still exhibited in the arsenal of
.Stockholm^. But, seriously, if you wish for an effectual
remedy, that prescribed by old Tiisser, in the following
lines, will answer your purpose :

" While wormwood hath seed, get a handfull or twaine,
To save against March, to make flea to rcfrainc :
Where chamber is swccpcd, and wormwood is strown,
No flea for his life dare abide to be known."

To this genus belongs an insect, abundant in the

' Linn. La>:h.. Lnpp, ji. 3?. note *.

102 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

West Indies and South America, the attacks of which
are infinitely more serious than those of the common
flea. You will readily conjecture that I am speaking of
the celebrated Chigoe or Jiggers, called also Nigua,
Ttmgua, and Pique^, [Pulex penetrans, L.,) one of the
direst personal pests with which the sins of man have
been visited. All disputes concerning the genus of this
insect would have been settled long before Swartz's
time, (who first gave a satisfactory description and figure
of it, proving it to be a Pulex, as has been observed
above ^,) had success attended the patriotic attempt of
the Capuchin friar recorded by Walton in his History
of St. Domingo, who brought away with him from that
island a colony of these animals, which he permitted to
establish themselves in one of his feet; but unfortunately
for himself, and for science, the foot intrusted with the
precious deposit mortified, was obliged to be amputated,
and with all its inhabitants committed to the waves.
According to Ulloa, and his opinion is confirmed by
Jussieu, there are two South American s})ecies of this
mischievous insect. It is described as generally attack-
ing the feet and legs *^, getting, without being felt, be-
tween the skin and the flesh, usually under the nails of
the toes, where it nidificates and lays its eggs ; and if
timely attention be not paid to it, whicli, as it occasions

^ Latreille supposes the Pique and Nigua to be synonymous with
Acarus americanus,h. Hint. i\^«/.vii. 364. — The Chigoe also he calls an
Acarm. Ibid. 390. ^ See above, p. 50.

* Captain Hancock, late connuander ofHis Majesty's ship the Fou-
droyant, to whose friendly exertions I am indebted for one of the
finest collections of Brazil insects ever brought to England, informs
me that they will attack any exposed part of the body. He had
them once in his hand.

DIRECT INJIKIKS CAUSED BV INSECTS. 103

no Other uneasiness than itching, (the sensation at first,
I am assured, is rather pleasing than otherwise,) is some-
times neglected, it muUiplies to such a degree, as to be
attended by the most liUal consequences, often, as in the
above instance, rendering amputation necessary, and
sometimes causing death *. The female shivcs in the
West Indies are frequently employed to extract these
pests, which they do with uncommon dexterity. Yarico,
so celebrated in prose and verse, performed this kind
office for honest Ligon, who says, in his Il/sfon/ of
Barbadocs^ " 1 have had ten (Chegoes) taken out of my
feet in a mornhi'x, bv the most unfortunate Yarico, an
Indian woman''." Humboldt observes, " that the whites
born in the tonid zone walk barefoot with impunity in
the same a{)artment where a European recently landed
is exposed to the attack of this ajiimal. The Nigua
therefore distinguishes what the most delicate chemical
analysis could not distinguish, the cellular membrane
and blood of a European from those of a Creole white*^."
You have already, perhaps, been satiated with the
account before given of our enemies of the Acarus tril)e ;
there are a few, however, which I coidd not with pro-
priety introduce there, as they do not take up their abode
and breed in us, which nevertheless annoy us consider-
ably. One of these is a hexapod so minute, that, were
it not for the uncommon brilliancy of its colour, which
is the most vivid crimson tliat can be conceived, it would
be quite invisible. It is known by the name of the har-
vest-bug, {Acarus aitfumiKilis, Shaw,) and is so called,
I imagine, from its attacking the legs of the labourers

" Piso and Margr. Jitd. 2m. '• p. 6.').

^ Pcmmnl Xairativr, E. T, v, 101.

104 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

employed in the harvest, in the flesh of which it buries
itself at the root of the hairs, producing intolerable itch-
ing, attended by inflammation and considerable tumours,
and sometimes even occasioning fevers *. — A similar in-
sect is found in Brazil, abounding in the rainy season,
particularly during the gleams of sunshine, or fine days
that intervene ; as small as a point, and moving very
fast. These animals get upon the linen and cover it in
a moment ; afterwards they insinuate themselves into the
skin and occasion a most intolerable itching. They are
with difficulty extracted, and leave behind them large
livid tumours, which subside in a day or two. An in-
sect very tormenting to the wood-cutters and the settlers
on the Mosquito shore and the bay of Honduras, and
called by them the doctor^ is thought to be synonymous
with this''. — More serious consequences have been known
to follow the bite of another Acarus related to the above,
if not the same species, common in Martinique, and
called there the Bete rouge. When our soldiers in camp
were attacked by this animal, dangerous idcers succeeded
the symptoms just mentioned, which, in several cases,
became so bad, that the limb affected was obliged to be
taken off *^,

I was once collecting insects in Norwood, near Lon-
don, when my hands were covered by a number of small
hungry ticks, which were so greedy after blood, that
they penetrated deep into my flesh, giving me no little
pain ; ^nd it was not without difficulty that I extracted

• Natural. MiscclL, ii. t. 43.

'^ Lindley in the Roijnl Military Chronicle for March 4815, p. 459.
*■■ I owe this information to Robinson Kittoe, Esq. formerly Clerk
of the Cheque in the King's Yard, Woolwich.

DIRECT ]\.iriUi;S (AlSl-.D UV INSl'XTS. 105

tlicm. I suspect tliiit this was the do^-tick (,7. liichmsy
L.) which is often round o\\ phints; but I aui not cer-
tain, as I neglected to examine it, my attention at that
time being ahnost wholly given to Volcnptcra. Tyyonnet
seems to have i)een attacked, in one of his entomological
excursions, by the same or a similar insect, which lie
broke, so firmly had it fixed itself, in endeavouring to
extract it; and he was obliged to lay open the place lest
an abscess should be tbrmed '. But the worst of all the
tick tribe is the American [Acarus atno/cfnii/s, L.) de-
scribed by Professor Kalm. This insect, whidi is re-
lated to the preceding, is found in the woods of North
America, and is ecjually an enemy to man and beast.
They are there st) infinitely numerous, that if you sit
<lown upon the ground, or upon the trunk oi' a tree, or
walk with naked feet or legs, they will cover you, and,
plunging their serrated rostrum into the bare places of
the body, begin to suck your blood, going deeper and
deeper till they are half buried in the flesh. Though at
first they occasion no uneasiness, wlien they have thus
made good their settlement, they produce an intolerable
itching, followed by acute pain and large tumours. It
is now extremely difficult to extract them, the animal
rather suffering itself to be pulled to pieces than let go
its hold ; so that the rostrum and head being often left
in tlie wound, produce an inflanunation and suppuration
which render it deep and dangerous. These ticks are
at first very small, sometimes scarcely visible, but by
suction will swell themselves out till they are as big as
the end of one's finger, when they often fall to the ground

* Lcsbcr L. ii. :*:^-,', note *.

106 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

of themselves *. The serrated haustellum of the ticks,
which, Hke the barbed sting of a bee, cannot be extract-
ed unless the animal cooperates, is well worth your in-
spection : and the species which infests our dogs is so
common that you will have no dijfficulty in procuring
one for examination.

I have now introduced you to the principal insects of
the Aptera order of Linne, which, in spite of all his care
and all his power, assail the lord of the creation, and
make him their food. You will here, however, perhaps
accuse me of omitting one very prominent annoyer of
our comfort and repose, which you think belongs to this
tribe — the bed-bug [Cimex lechdarhis, L.). Wlien you
are a more practised entomologist, you will see clearly
that this, though it has no wings, appertains to another
order : nevertheless it may be introduced here without
impropriety. Though now too common and well known,
in this coiuitry it was formerly a rare insect. Had it
not, two noble ladies, mentioned by Mouffet, would
scarcely have been thrown into such an alarm by the
appearance of bug-bites upon them; which, until their
fears were dispelled by their ]>hysician, who happened
also to be a naturalist, they considered as nothing less
than symptoms of the plague. Being shown the living
cause of their fright, their fears gave place to mirth and
laughter''. Conmierce, with many good things, has also
introduced amongst us many great evils, of which noxious
insects form no small part; and one of her worst presents

" De Gecr, vii. 154-60.

^ Theatr. Ins. 270. This Imppencd in 1503; wliich ciiciinistante
refutes SouthaH's opinion that biigs were not known in England
before 1670,

DlilKCT INJIKIES CAL'SED BY INSECTS. 107

were doubtless tlie disgusting animals now before us.
They seem, indeed, as the above fact proves, to have
been protluctive of greater alarm at first than mischief,
at least if we may judge from the change of name which
took place upon their becoming common. Their ori-
ginal English name was Cliinchc or Wall-loiisc^ ; and
the term Bug^ which is a Celtic word, signifying a ghost
or goblin, was ap]ilied to them after Hay's time, most
probably because they were considered as " terrors by
night''." But however horrible bugs may have been in
the estimation of some, or nauseating in that of others,
many of the good people of London seem to regard
them with the greatest apathy, and take very little pains
to get rid of them ; not generally, liowever, it is to be
hoped, to such an extent as the predecessor of a corre-
spondent in Nicholson's Journal who found his house
so dreadfully infested by them, that it resembled the
Banian hospital at Suraf^, all his endeavours to destroy
them being at first in vain. And no wonder ; for, as he
learned from a neighbour, his predecessor woidd never

* Rai. Hist. Ills. 7- Mouifet, 269- Tliey were called also puncz,
from the French punaisc.

^ Hcnceoiir English word Bug-bear. In Matthews's Bible, Ps. xci. .5.
is rendered, " Thou shall not ncdc to be afraid of any bugs by night."
The word in this sense often occurs in Shakespear. Winter^s Tak'y
act iii. sc.i?. o. Hen. VI. act v. sc. 2. Hamlet, act v. sc. 'i. See Doucc's
Illustrations of Slinkcspear, i. .321).

*■ The Banian hospital at Sural is a most remarkable institution.
At my visit, the hospital contained horses, mules, oxen, sheep, goats,
monkeys, poultry, pigeons, and a variety of birds. Tiic most extra-
ordinary ward was that ajipropriated to rats and mice, bugs, and other
noxious vermin. The overseers of the hospital frequently hire beg-
gars from the streets, for a stipulated sum, to pass a night amongst the
^fleas, lice, and bitgt, on the express oondition of suflering them to en-
joy their feast without molcstalion. Forbes's Oiiridal Memoirs.

108 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

suffer them to be disturbed or his bedsteads to be re-
moved, till, in the end, they swarmed to an incredible
degree, crawling up even the walls of his drawing-room ;
and after his death millions were found in his bed and
chamber furniture*.

The winged insects of the order to which the bed-bug
belongs, often inflict very painful wounds. — I was once
attacked by a small species, Ciniex Nemorum, I^. I be-
lieve, which put me nearly to as much torture as the
sting of a wasp. The water boatman, [Notonecta glaucuy
L.,) an insect related to the Cimicidce, which always
swims upon its back, made me suffer still more severely,
as if I had been burned, by the insertion of its rostrum ;
but the wound was not followed by any inflammation ;
and long before me Willughby had made the same dis-
covery and observation''. St. Pierre, in his Voyage to
Mauritius^ mentions a species of bug found in that island,
the bite of which is more venomous than the sting of a
scorpion, and is succeeded by a tumour as big as the
egg of a pigeon, which continues for foin* or five days.
You are well acquainted with the history and properties
of the Raia Torpedo and Gymnottis elcctricus ; but, I
dare aver, have no idea that any insect possesses their
extraordinary powers. — Yet I can assure you, upon good
authority, that Reduvius serrahis, F., commonly known
in the West Indies by the name of the wheel-bug, can,
like them, communicate an electric shock to the person
whose flesh it touches. The late Major-general Davies,
of the Royal Artillery, well kno^^^l as a most accurate

* Nicholson's Journal, xvii. 40.

*> Proboscis in cutem intrusa acerrimum ilolorem excitat, qui
tamen brevi cessat. Rai. Hist. Ins, 58.

DIRECT IN'Jl'RIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 109

observer of nature and an indefatigable collector of her
treasures, as well as ;i most admirable painter of them,
once informed me, that when abroad, having taken up
this animal and placed it upon his hand, it gave him a
considerable shock, as if from an electric jar, with its
legs, which he felt as high as his shoulders ; and, drop-
ping the creature, he observed six marks upon his hand
where the six feet had stood.

You may now possibly think that I have nearly gone
through the catalogue of our personal assailants of the
insect tribes. If such, however, is your expectation, I
fear you will be disappointed, since I have many more,
and some tremendous ones, to enumerate : but as a small
compensation for such a detail of evils and injuries to
which our species is exposed from foes seemingly so in-
significant, and of acts of rebellion of the vilest and most
despised of our subjects against our boasted supremacy,
the objects to which I shall next call your attention are
not, like most of our apterous enemies, calculated to ex-
cite disgust and nausea when we see them or speak of
them ; nor do they usually steal upon us during the si-
lent hours of repose, (though I must except here the gnat
or mosquito,) but are many of them very beautiful, and
boldly make their attack upon us in open day, when we
are best able to defend ourselves. Borne on rapid wings,
wherever they find us, they endeavour to lay us under
contribution, and the tribute they exact is our blood.
Wonderful and various are the weapons that enable
them to enforce their demand. What would you think
of any large animal that should come to attack you with
a tremendous apparatus of knives and lancets issuhig
from its mouth ? Yet such are the instruments by means

110 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

of whicli the fire-eyed and blood-thirsty horse-fly ( Ta-
&am/^, L.) makes an incision in your flesh; and then,
forming a siphon of them, often carries off' many drops
of your blood ^. The pain they inflict, when they open
a vein, is usually very acute. A fly of this kind not
only occasioned Mr, Sheppard considerable pain by its
bite, but also produced swelling and blackness round
one eye ; and the flesh of his cheek and chin was so en-
larged from it as to hang down. In this country, how-
ever, their attacks are not frequent enough to make them
more than a minor " misery of human life;" but the
burning-fly {brulot) or sand-fly of America"^ and the
West Indies, which seem to be the same insect, causes
a much more intolerable anguish, which has been com-
pared to what a red-hot needle or a spark of fire would
occasion us to endure. Lambert, in his Travels through
Canada, &c. says, " They are so very small as to be
hardly perceptible in their attacks ; and your forehead
will be streaming with blood before you are sensible of
being amongst them"^." — Yet we have one species [Sto-
moxys calcitrans, F.) alluded to in a former letter as so
nearly resembling the common house-fly'*, which, though
its oral instruments are to appearance not near so tre-
mendous, is a much greater torment than the Tahanus.
This little pest, I speak feelingly, incessantly interrupts
our studies and comfort in showery weather, making us
even stamp like the cattle by its attacks on our legs ;
and, if we drive it away ever so often, returning again

* One took eight drops from Reaumur, iv. 230. Plate VII. Fig. 5.
*> Bartram's Travels, 383.

*^ i. 127. The West India sand-fly was noticed by Robinson Kittoe,
Esq., who however does not recollect their fetching blood.
•* See above, p. 48-49.

niRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY IKSECTS. 1 1 I

and again to the charge. In Canada they are infinitely
worse. '"• 1 have sat down to write," says I^anibert, (who
though he calls it the house-fly is evidently speaking of
the Stoinoxys,) '• and have been obliged to throw
away my ]w\\ in consequence of their irritating bite, which
has obliged me every moment to raise my hand to my
eyes, nose, mouth, and ears in constant succession.
When I could no longer write, I began to read, and
was always obliged to keep one hand constantly on the
move towards my head. Sometimes in the course of a
few minutes I would take half a dozen of my tormentors
from my lips, between which I caught them just as they
perched"."

The swallow-fly [OniitJiomyia HiruncUnis, Latr.
Hippobosca, L.), whose natural food is the bird after
which it is named, has been known to make its repast on
the hmnan species. One found its way into a bed of
the Rev. R. Sheppard, where it first, for several nights,
sorely annoyed a friend of his, and afterwards himself^
without their suspecting the culprit. After a close
search, however, it was discovered in the form of this
fly, which, forsaking the nest of the swallow, had by
some chance taken its station between the sheets, and
thus glutted itself vnth the blood of man. — In travelling
beteen Edam and Purmerendin North Holland (July 21,
1815), in an open vehicle, I was much teased by another
bird-fly [Ornithomyia avicidaria, Latr.) (two individuals
of which I caught) alighting upon my head, and insert-
ing its rostrum into my flesh. — Mr. Sheppard remarks,
as a reason for this dereliction of their appropriate food,
that no sooner does life depart from the bird that these
• » Trave/s.&c. i. 126.

112 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY IN-SECTS.

flies infest, than they immediately desert it and take
flight, ahghting upon the first Hving creature that they
meet with ; which if it be not a bird they soon quit, but,
as it should seem from the above facts, not before they
have made a trial how it will suit them as food.

But of all the insect-tormentors of man, none are so
loudly and universally complained of as the species of
the genus Culex, L., whether known by the name of
gnats or mosquitos ^. Pliny, after Aristotle, distinguishes
well between Hymenoptera and Diptera, when he says
the former have their sting in their tail, and the latter
in their mouth ; and that to the one this weapon is given
as the instrument of vengeance, and to the other of avi-
dity^. But the instrument of avidity in the genus of
which I am speaking, is even more terrible that that of
vengeance in most insects that are armed with it : like
the latter also, as appears from the consequent inflam-
mation and tumour, it instills into its wound a poison ;
the principal use of which, however, is to render the
blood more fluid and fitter for suction. This w^eapon,
which is more complex than the sting of hjanenopterous
insects, consisting of five pieces besides the exterior
sheath, some of which seem simply lancets, while others
are barbed like the spicula of a bee's sting, is at once
calculated for piercing the flesh and forming a siphon

* It has been generally supposed by naturalists, that the Mosqui-
tos of America belong to the Linnean genus Culcv; but the celebrated
traveller Humboldt asserts that tiie term Mosquito, signifying a lit-
tle fly, is applied there to a Simulium, Latr., and that the Ciilices,
which are equally numerous and annojdng, are called Zancudoes,
which means loiig legs. The former he says are what the French
call Aloustiques, and the latter Maringouim. Personal Narrative,
E. T. V. 93.

" Plin. Hist. Nat. 1. xi. c. 28. Aristot. Hist. Animal. 1. i, c. 5.

DIKEcT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 113

adapted to imbibe the blood". There are several species
of this genus whose bite is severe, but none is lobe com-
pared to the coiiiinon gnat [Culcx pipicjis, L.), if, as has
been generally allirnied, it be synonymous with the mos-
quito (though perhaps several species are confounded
under both names) ; and to this, the most insatiable of
blood-suckers, I shall principally direct your attention.

In this country they are justly regarded as no trifling
evil ; for they follow us to all our haunts, intrude into
our most secret retirements, assail us in the city and in
the country, in our houses and in our fields, in the sun
and in the shade : nay, they pursue us to our pillows,
and either keep us awake by the ceaseless hum of their
droning pipe, and their incessant endeavours to fix them-
selves upon our face, or some uncovered part of our
body ; or, if in spite of them we fall asleep, awaken us by
the acute pain which attends the insertion of their oral
stings ; attacking with most avidity the softer sex, and
trying their temper by disfiguring their beauty. But
although with us they are usually rather teasing than in-
jurious ; yet upon some occasions they have approached
nearer to the character of a plague, and emulated with
success the mosquitos of other climates. Thus, we are
told that in the year 1736 they were so numerous, that
vast columns of them were seen to rise in the air from
Salisbury cathedral, which at a distance resembled
columns of smoke, and occasioned many people to think

* Pliny was aware of this double office of the proboscis of a gnat,
and has well described it. " Telum vero perfodieiido tergori quo
spiculavit ingenio ? Atque ut in capaci, cum cerni non possit ex-
ilitas, ita reciproca geniinavit arte, ut fodiendo acuminatum pariter
sorbeiidoque fistulosum esset." Hist. Nat. 1. xi. c. 2.

VOL. I. I

114 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

that the cathedral was on fire. A similar occurrence,
in like manner giving rise to an alarm of the church
being on fire, took place in July 1812 at Sagan in Si-
lesia". In the following year at Norwich, in May, at
about six o'clock in the evening, the inhabitants of that
city were alarmed by the appearance of smoke issuing
from the upper window of the spire of the cathedral, for
which at the time no satisfactory account could be given,
but which was most probably produced by the same
case. And in the year 1766, in the month of August,
they appeared in such incredible numbers at Oxford as
to resemble a black cloud, darkening the air and almost
totally intercepting the beams of the sun. One day, a
little before sun-set, six columns of them were observed
to ascend from the boughs of an apple-tree, some in a
perpendicular and others in an oblique direction, to the
height of fifty or sixty feet. Their bite was so enve-
nomed, that it was attended by violent and alarming in-
flammation ; and one when killed usually contained as
much blood as would cover three or four square inches
of wall''. Our great poet Spenser seems to have wit-
nessed a similar appearance of them, which furnished

him with the following beautiful simile :
o

As when a swarnie of gnats at eventide

Out of the fennes of Allan doe arise,

Their murmuring small trumpets sownden wide.

Whiles in the air their clustring army flies,

That as a cloud doth seem to dim the skies ;

Ne man nor beast may rest or take repast

For their sharp wounds and noyous injuries.

* Germar's Magazin der Entomologie, i. 137.
»» PkUos. Trans. 1767, 111-13.

DIIUUT IN'JI'UIF.S CAUSKD UY INSECTS. 115

Till the fierce northern wind with blustering blast
Doth blow thcni quite away, and in the ocean cast.

In Marshland in Norfolk, as I learn from a lady who
had an opjjortiiniiy of personal ins])i!ction, the inhabit-
ants are so annoyed by the gnats, that the better sort of
them, as in many hot climates, have reconrse to a gauze
covering for their beds, to keep them off during the night.
Whether this practice obtains in otiier fen districts I do
not know.

But these evils are of small accoimt compared with
what other countries, especially when we approach the
poles or the line, are destined to suffer from them ; for
there they interfere so much with ease and comfort, as
to become one of the worst of pests and a real misery of
human life. We may be disposed to smile perhaps at
the story Mr. W^eld relates from General Washington,
that in one place the mosquitos were so powerful as to
pierce through his boots* (probably they crept within
the boots) : but in various regions scarcely any thing
less impenetrable than leather can withstand their in-
sinuating weapons and imwearied attacks. One would
at first imagine that regions where the polar winter ex-
tends its icy reign would not be much annoyed by in-
sects : but however probable the supposition, it is the
reverse of fact, for nowhere are gnats more numerous.
These animals, as well as the J'ijyulidte^ seem endowed
with the privilege of resisting any degree of cold, and of
bearing any degree of heat. In Lapland their numbers
are so prodigious as to be compared to a flight of snow

» Weld's Travels, 8vo edit. 205. Yet Mouffet affirms tlicsaine:
" Morsu crudeles et vcnenati, triplices caligas, imo ocicas, item per-
forantes." 81.

I 2

116 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

when the flakes fall thickest, or to the dust of the earth.
The natives cannot take a mouthful of food, or lie down
to sleep in their cabins, unless they be fumigated almost
to suffocation. In the air you cannot draw your breath
without having your mouth and nostrils filled with them ;
and unguents of tar, fish-grease, or cream ; or nets
steeped in fetid birch-oil, are scarcely suflicient to pro-
tect even the case-hardened cuticle of the Laplander
from their bite*. In certain districts of France, the ac-
curate Reaumur informs us that he has seen people
whose arms and legs have become quite monstrous from
wounds inflicted by gnats ; and in some cases in such a
state as to render it doubtful whether amputation would
not be necessary^. In the neighbourhood of the Crimea
the Russian soldiers are obliged to sleep in sacks to de-
fend themselves from the mosquitos ; and even this is
not a sufficient security, for several of them die in conse-
quence of mortification produced by the bites of these
furious blood-suckers. This fact is related by Dr.
Clarke, and to its probability his own painful experience
enabled him to speak. He informs us that the bodies
of himself and his companions, in spite of gloves, clothes,
and handkerchiefs, were rendered one entire wound, and
the consequent excessive irritation and swelling excited
a considerable degree of fever. In a most sultry night,
when not a breath of air was stirring, exhausted by fa-
tigue, pain, and heat, he sought shelter in his carriage :
and, though almost suffocated, could not venture to open
a window for fear of the mosquitos. Swarms neverthe-
less found their way into his hiding-place; and, in spite

• Acerbi's Travels, ii. 5. 34-5. 51. Linn. Flor. Lapp. 380-1.
tach. Lapp. ii. 108. De Geer, vi. 303-4. '- Reaum. iv. 573.

DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 117

of the handkerchiefs with which he had bound up his
head, filletl his mouth, nostrils, and ears. In the midst
of his torment he succeeded in lighting a huiip, which
was extinguished in a moment by sucii a prodigious
number of tiiese insects, that their carcases actually filled
the glass chimney, and formed a large conical heap over
the burner. The noise they make in flying cannot be
conceived by persons who have only heard gnats in Eng-
land. It is to till that liear it a most fearful sound*.
Travellers and mariners who have visited warmer cli-
mates give a similar account of the torments there in-
flicted by these little demons. One traveller in Africa
complains that after a fifty miles journey they would not
suffer him to rest, and that his face and hands appeared,
from their bites, as if he was infected with the small-pox
in its worst stiige''. In the East, at Batavia, Dr. Arnold,
a most attentive and accurate observer, relates that their
bite is the most venomous he ever felt, occasioning a most
intolerable itching, which lasts several days. The sight
or sound of a single one either prevented him from go-
ing to bed for a whole night, or obliged him to rise many
times. This species, which I have examined, is distinct
from the common gnat, and appears to be nondescrij)t.
It approaches nearest to C. annulata, but the wings are
black and not spotted. And Captain Stedman in Ame-
rica, as a proof of the dreadful state to which he and his
soldiers were reduced by them, mentions that they were
forced to sleep with their heads thrust into holes made
in the earth with their bayonets, and their necks wrapped
round with their hammocks •=.

» Dr. Clarke';; Tratrls, i. .'jSS. . " Jackson's Morocco, 57.

c Travels, ii. 03.

118 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

From Humboldt also we learn that "between the
little harbour of Higuerote and the mouth of the Rio
Unare the wretched inhabitants are accustomed to stretch
themselves on the ground, and pass the night buried in
the sand three or four inches deep, leaving out the head
only, which they cover with a handkerchief." This illus-
trious traveller has given an account in detail of these
insect plagues, by which it appears that amongst them
there are diurnal, crepuscular, and nocturnal species, or
genera : the Mosquitos or Simidia flying in the day ;
the Temporancros, probably a kind of Culex, flying
during twilight; and the Zancudos or Cidices in the
night. So that there is no rest for the inhabitants
from their torment day or night, except for a short in-
terval between the retreat of one species and the attack
of another. We learn from this author that the sting
or bite of the Shnidium is as bad as that of the Sfomoxys
before noticed ^.

It is not therefore incredible that Sapor, king of Per-
sia, as is related, should have been compelled to raise
the siege of Nisibisby a plague of gnats, which attack-
ing his elephants and beasts of biirthen, so caused the
rout of his army, whatever we may think of the miracle
to which it was attributed''; nor that the inhabitants of
various cities, as Mouffet has collected from different au-
thors'^, should, by an extraordinary multiplication of
this plague, have been compelled to desert them ; or
that by their power to do mischief, like other conquerors
who have been the torment of the human race, they should

* Humboldt's Personal Narrative, E. T. v. 87-.
" Thcodorit. HhL Eccl. 1. it. c. 30.
' Mouffet, 85. Amoreux, 119.

DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 119

have attained to fame, and have given their name to
bays, towns, and even to considerable territories*.

And now, which seems to you the greater terror, that
the forest should resound with the roar of the lion or
the tiger, or with the hum of the gnat? Which evil is
most to be deprecated, the neighbourhood of these fero-
cious animals, terrible as they are for their cruelty and
strength, or to live amidst the polar or tropical myriads
of mosquitos, and be subject to the torture of their in-
cessant attacks? When you consider that from the one,
prudence and courage may secure or defend us without
any material sacrifice of our daily comforts ; while to be at
rest from the other, we must either render ourselves disgust-
ing by filthy imguents, or be suffocated by fumigations,
or be content to be bound, head, hand and foot, shut out
from the respiration of the common air, and even thus
scarcely escape from their annoyance ; you will feel con-
vinced that the former is the more tolerable evil of the
two, and be inclined to think that those cities, from which
the lions were driven away by the more powerful gnats,
were no great gainers by the exchange''. W^ith what
grateful hearts ought the privileged inhabitants of these
happy islands to acknowledge and glorify' the goodness
of that kind Providence which has distinguished us from
the less favoured nations of the globe, by what may be
deemed an immunity from this tormenting pest ! for the
inroads which they make on our comfort, when con-
trasted with what so many other people of every climate
suffer from theiii, are mere nothings. W^hen we behold

* \'iz. Mosquito Bay in St. f Christopher's ; MosquUos, a town in
the Island of Cuba; and the Mosquilo conniry \n North America,
i- MonfTct, 85.

120 OIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

on one side of us the ravages of the wide-wasting sword,
on another those of infectious disease or pestilence, on a
third famine destroying its myriads, and on a fourth Ufe
rendered uncomfortable by the terror of "noisome beasts,"
and the attack of noxious insects : and when we look at
home and see every one eating his bread in peace, pro-
tected in his enjoyments by equal laws executed by a
mild government under a paternal king, without fearing
the sword of the oppressor ; not scourged by pestilence
or famine, exposed to the attack of no ferocious animal,
and comparatively speaking but slightly visited by the
annoyance of insect tormentors ; and especially when we
further reflect that it is his mercy and not our merits
which has induced him thus to overwhelm us with bless-
insfs, while other countries have been made to drink
deep of the cup of his fury, we shall see reason for an
increased degree of thankfulness and gratitude, and, in-
stead of repining, be well content with our lot, though
our offences have not wholly been passed over, and we
have been " beaten with few stripes."

Besides the insects that seek to make us their food,
there are others, which, although we are apt to regard
them with the greatest horror, do not attack us with this
view, but usually to revenge some injury which they
have received, or apprehend from us. Foremost in
the list of these are those with four wings, which, accord-
ing to the observation of Pliny before quoted, carry their
weapon, an instrument of revenge, in their tail. These
all belong to the Linnean order Hymcjioptera ,- and the
tremendous arms with which they annoy us, are two
darts finer than a hair, furnished on their outer side at

DIRECT IN.Il niES CAl'SEI) BY INSECTS. 1 '2 1

the ciul with several barbs not visible to the naked eye,
xiiul e;uli moving in the groove of a strong and often
curved sheath, fre(juently mistaken I'or tlie sting, which,
when the darts enter the flesh, usually injects a drop of
subtle venom, furnished from a peculiar vessel in which
it is secreted, into the wound, occasioning, especially if
the darts be not extracted, a considerable tumour, ac-
companied by very acute pain. Many insects are thus
armed and have this power. Twice I have been stung
by an Ichneumon ; first by one with a concealed sting,
and afterwards by another of the family of /. Manifcs-
talor (Pimj'/a, F.), with a very long exerted sting. I
had held the insect by its sting, which it withdrew from
between my fingers with surprising force, and then, as
if in revenge, stung me. Pompihis viaticiis, a vespoid in-
sect that dejiosits its eggs in spiders, once, in this way,
gave me acute pain. But the insects which in this re-
spect principally attract our notice by exciting our fears,
are the hive-bee, the wasp, and the hornet. The first of
these, the bee, sometimes manifests an antipathy to par-
ticular individuals, whom it attacks and wounds without
provocation ; but the two last, though apparently the
most formidable, are not so ill-tempered as they are con-
ceived to be, seldom molesting those who do not first
interfere with or disturb them. We learn from Scrip-
ture that the hornet (but whether it was the common
species is uncertain) was employed by Providence to
drive out the impious inhabitants of Canaan, or subdue
them under the hand of the Israelites*. — The effect pro-,
duced by the sting of these animals is different in diffe-
rent persons. To some they occasion only a very slighj;

* Dcut. vij. 20. Joih. x\iv. \2.

122 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

inconvenience or a momentary pain; others feel the
smart of the wounds which they inflict for several days,
and are thrown into fevers by them ; and to some they
have even proved fatal*. Yet these insects are certainly,
in general, but a trifling evil. They become, however,
especially ivasps, a very serious one to many, from the
mere dread of being stung by them, even though they
should not carry their fears to the same length with the
lady mentioned by Dr. Fairfax '', in the Philosophical
Transactions^ who had such a horror of them, that du-
ring the season in which they abound in houses, she al-
ways confined herself to her apartment.

Ants are insects of this order, which, though our in-
digenous species may be regarded as harmless, in some
countries are gifted with double means of annoj^ance,
both from their sting and their bite. A green kind in
New South Wales was observed by Sir Joseph Banks
to inflict a wound scarcely less painful than the sting of
a bee*^. Another, from the intolerable anguish occa-
sioned by its bite, which resembles that produced by a
spark of fire, and seems attended by venom, is called
the fire-ant. Captain Stedman relates that this caused
a whole company of soldiers to start and jump about as
if scalded with boiling water ; and its nests were so nu-
merous that it was not easy to avoid them''. We are
told of a third species, which emulates the scorpion in
the malignity of its sting or bite ^. Knox, in his account
of Ceylon, mentions a black ant, called b}' the natives
Coddia, which he snys " bites desperately, as bad as if

» Amoreux, 242. '' rhilos. Trans, i. 201.

' Hawkeswortb's Coo/r, iii. 223. '' Stedman, ii. 94.

' Bingley, iii. SS^t, first edit.

DIRECT INJIHILS CALStD BY INSKiTS. 123

a man were burnt by a coal of fire; but tluy art' t)f a
noble nature, and will not begin unless you disturb
them." The reason the Cinghalesc assign for the hor-
rible pain occasioned by their bite is curious, and will
serve to amuse you. " rormerly these ants went to
ask a wife of the Xot/n, a venomous and noble kind of
snake ; and because they had such a high spirit to dare
to ofier to be related to such a generous creature, they
had this virtue bestowed upon them, that they should
sting after this manner. And if they had obtained a wife
of the Nova, they should have had the privilege to sting
full as bad as he*. Stedman's story of a large ant that
stripped the trees of their leaves, to feed, as was sup-
posed, a blind serpent under ground^, is somewhat akin
to this: as is also another, related to me by a liiend of
mine, of a species of Mantis, now in my cabinet, taken
in one of the Indian islands, which, according to the
received opinitm amongst the natives, v/as the parent
of all their serpents. Whence, unless perhaps from
their noxious qualities, could this idea of a connexion
between insects and these rej)tiles be deriveil ? But

to ret urn from this digression Madame Merian's

Ant of Visitation will be considered in a subsequent let-
ter: but I cannot here omit a circumstance mentioned
by Don Felix de Azara, a late Spanish traveller, who
confirms her account, — that these animals are so alarm-
ing and tremendous in their attacks, that if they enter
a house in the night, the inhabitants are obliged to rise
with all speed and run off in their shirts.

I nmst next direct your attention to an insect, which
perhaps more than any other lias in every age been an
object of terror and abhorrence — I mean the redoubted
'' Knox's C''//hn, 'ii, ' Stcdnian, ii, 1 Ix?.

124; DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

scorpion. And though I shall not, with Aristotle, tell
you of Persian kings employing armies for several days
in destroying them ; or, with Pliny, of countries that
they have depo}iulated ; yet my account will not be de-
void of that species of interest which the dread of its
power to do us injury imparts to any object. Could you
see one of these ferocious animals, perhaps a foot in
length, a size to which they sometimes attain, advancing
towards you in their usual menacing attitude, with its
claws expanded, and its many-jointed tail turned over its
liead ; were your heart ever so stout, I think you would
start back and feel a horror come across you ; and,
though you knew not the animal, you would conclude
that such an aspect of malignity must be the precur-
sor of malignant effects. Nor would you be mistaken, as
you will presently see. This alarming animal, though
like hymenopterous insects it is armed with a sting, is in
no respect related to that order, and forms the only ge-
nus, at present known, of the others that is so armed.
Even its sting is totally different from that of bees, wasps,
and other Hymenoptera, being more analogous to the
venomous tooth of serpents ; it wounds us with no
barbed darts concealed in a sheath, but only with a
simple incurved mucro terminating an ampullaceous
joint. Two orifices, or according to some three, are
said to instill the poison, which, we are informed, is
sometimes as white as milk. This venom in our Euro-
pean species is seldom attended, except to minor ani-
mals, by any very serious consequences ; yet when it is
communicated by the scorpion of warmer climates it
produces more baneful effects. The sting of certain
kinds conniion in South America causes fevers, numb-
ness iii variout^ parts of the body, tumours in the tongue,

DinECT INJUUIKS CAl'SED HY INSECTS. 125

and dimness of sight, which symptoms hist iVoui Iwinty-
iour to forty-eight hours. The only means of saving
the lives of our soldiers who were stung by them in
Egvpt, w:is amputation. One species is said to occasion
madness ; and the black scorpion, both of South Ame-
rica and Ceylon, iVetjUcntly inflicts a mortal wound'*.
No known animal is more cruel and ferocious in its man-
ners; they kill and devour their own young without pity
as soon as they are born, and they are ecjually savage to
their fellows when grown up. Terrible however and re-
volting as these creatures appear, we are gravely told
by Naude, that there is a species of scorpion in Italy
which is domesticated, and put between the sheets to
cool tlie beds durinj; the heats of summer^ I !

I nuist next say something of insects that annoy us
solely by their jaxcs. Of this description is Solpiiga
aratieoides, F. (GalcodeSy Oliv.) wliicli is related to the
scorpion, although devoid of a sting. The bite of this
animal, which is a native of the Cape of Good Hope
and of Russia*^, is represented to be often fatal both to
man and beast. Another species of Solpuga is described
by Professor Lichtenstein, which, from the trivial name
that he has given it {/afale), may be supposed to be as
venomous as the former'*.

The bite of one of the centipedes {Scolopc7idra morsi-
ians, L.) — the under-jaws of which are armed with a
strong claw, furnished like the sting of the scorpion with
an orifice, visible under a common lens*^, from which

» Ulloa's Toy. i. 61, 62. Dr. Clarke's Trmv/.^, i. 480. Amo-
reiix, 197.

'' Andrews's Anecdotes, 427. See on the subject of Scorpions Anio-
reux. 41-54. 176-205. ^ Fab. Supji/. 294. 2.

'^ Catal. Ham. 17U7. 151-195. ^ Plate VII. Fig. 13./. d.

126 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSF.CTS.

poison issues — is less tremendous than that of the Sol-
puga : but though not mortal, its wounds are more pain-
ful than those produced by the sting of the scorpion;
and as these animals creep every where, even into beds,
they must be very annoying in warm climates where
they abound. Dr. Martin Lister, in his Travels^ has
given us a figure of an insect related to this genus, that
he saw in Plumier's collection, which appears to have
been eighteen inches in length, and three quarters of an
inch in width, having ninety-five legs on each side, the
first eight of which are armed with double claws, and
two inches of the tail being without legs. It may form
a distinct genus, and is probably a native of South Ame-
rica. Yet even this monstrous insect is nothing to those
at Carthagena, mentioned by tUloa, (if indeed we may
credit his account, or if his translator has not mistaken
his meaning,) which sometimes exceeded a yard in length
and five inches in breadth ! The bite of this gigantic
serpent-like creature, he tells us, is mortal, as well it
may, if a timely remedy be not applied. From its cy-
lindrical form it should be a Julus*.

In this catalogue of noxious insects I must not omit
those which every where force themselves upon our no-
tice, and are viewed with general disgust. I mean the
numerous family of Arachne, the insidious spiders. Few
of these, however, are really personal assailants of man.
The principal is that which has given rise to so much
discussion, and has so much employed the pens of natu-
ralists and physicians — the famous Tarentula [Lycosa
Tarentula^ Walck.). The effects ascribed to its wounds,
and their wonderful cure supposed to be wrought by
» Ulloa's Voyage, \.&\.

DIRECT INJLIIIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 127

music and dancing, have long been celebrated : but after
all there seems to have been more of fraud than of truth
in the business; and tin; whole evil appears to consist
in swelling and inflammation. Dr. C'lavitio submitted
to 1)0 bitten by this animal, and no bad effects ensued;
and the Count de Borch, a Polish nobleman, bribed a
man to undergo the same experiment, in whom the
only result was a swelling in the hand, attended by into-
lerable itching. The fellow's sole remedy was a bottle
of wine, which charmed away all his pain without the
aid of pipe and tabor ^.

There is however a spider ( Aranea 1 3-guttata Rossi )
the bite of which is said to be very dangerous, and even
mortal. Thiebaut de Berneaud, in his Voyage to Elba^^
affirms that in the Volterrano he knew that several coun-
try people and domestic animals died in consequence of
it- And according to Mr. Jackson, a spider, called
there the Tcndaroman, is found in Marocco which has
venomous powers equally formidable. The bite of this
insect, which is about the size and colour of a hornet but
rounder, and spins a web so fine as to be almost invisi-
ble, is said to be so poisonous that the person bitten sur-
vives but a tew hours. In the cork forests die sports-
man, eager in his pursuit of game, frequently carries
away on his garments this fatal insect, which is asserted
always to make towards the head before inflicting its
deadly wound ^.

I suspect you will think this list long enough ; and I
believe it includes the most remarkable insects that as-
sail the surface of our bodies, to answer either the de-

• Amorcux. 2\'J-i'if). Sec also fi7-70. •> p. 31.

' Jackson's Marocra, seoond edit.

128 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BV INSECTS.

mands of hunger or the stimulus of revenge. There is
however a third class of insect annoyers, as I observed
at the beginning of this letter, which, though they nei-
ther make us their food, nor attack us under the im-
pulse of fear or revenge, incommode us extremely in
other ways. These must now be detailed to you.

How extremely unpleasant is the sensation which that
very minute creature, Jlirips phijsajms, L., excites in
sultry weather, merely by creeping over our skin ! I
have sometimes found this almost intolerable. A simi-
lar torment, reckoned by Ulloa a kind of Mosquito, in-
fests the inhabitants of Carthagena in South America.
They are there called Ma?itas bla?icas, and creeping be-
tween the threads of the gauze curtains that keep off the
former pest, though they do not bite, occasion an itch-
ing that is dreadfully tormenting^. But these are no-
thing compared with the teasing attacks of the Simulium
reptuHs, Latr., which, as Linne informs us, who mis-
named it a Culex, is so incredibly numerous in Lapland,
as entirely to cover a man's body, turning a white dre^
into a black one, occupying the whole atmosphere, filling
the mouth, nostrils, eyes, and ears of travellers, and thus
preventing respiration, and almost choking them. These
little animals, he says, do not bite, but torture incessant-
ly by their titillation^. — In New South Wales a small
ant was observed by Sir Joseph Banks, inhabiting the
roots of a plant, which when disturbed rushed out by
myriads, and running over the uncovered parts of the

* Ulloa, i. 64. Probably the Cafaft, a white fly noticed by Hum-
boldt, is synonymous with this of Ulloa, which could only be pre-
vented from creeping between the threads of the curtains by keep-
ing them wet. Personal Narrative, E. T. v. 1&7.

" Lack. Lapp. i. 208, 209. Fl. Lapp. 382, 383, It appears how-
ever, from other authors, that they do bite.

DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 129

body produced a sensation of this kind that was worse
than pain.

The common house-fly is with us often sufficiently
annoying at the close of summer; but we know nothing
of it as a tormentor compared with the inhabitants of
southern Europe. — " I met (says Arthur Young in his in-
teresting Travels through France) between Pradelles and
Thuytz, mulberries and Hies at the same time; by the
term Jlics I mean those myriads of them which form the
most disagreeable circumstance of the southern climates.
Tliey are the first torments in Spain, Ital}', and the Olive
district of France : it is not that they bite, sting, or hurt,
but tliey buzz, tease, and worry : your mouth, eyes, ears,
and nose, are full of them : they swarm on every eatable,
fruit, sugar, milk, every thing is attacked by them in such
myriads, that if they are not incessantly driven away by
a person who has nothing else to do, to eat a meal is im-
possible. They are however caught on prepared paper
and other contrivances with so much ease and in such
quantities, that were it not from negligence, they could
not abound in such incredible quantities. If I farmed
in these countries, I think I should manure four or five
acres every year with dead flies. — I have been much sur-
prised that the late learned Mr. Harmer should think it
odd to find, by writers who treated of southern climates,
that driving away flies was an object of importance.
Had he been with me in Spain and in Languedoc m
July and August, he would have been very far fi'om
thinking there was any thing odd in it^,"

* Young's Travels in France, i. 298. These flies are equally trou«
blesome and tormenting in Sweden. See Amcen . Acad. iii. 343.
vol.. I. K

130 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED DY INSECTS.

Our friend Captain Green, of the sixth regiment of
the East India Company's native troops, relates to me,
that in India, when the mangoes are ripe, which is the
hottest part of the summer, a very minute black fly
makes its appearance, which, because it flies in swarms
into the eyes, is very troublesome, and causes much
pain, is called there the eye-Jly. At this season the eyes
are attacked by a disease, supposed to be occasioned by
eating the mangoes, but more probably the result of the
irritation produced by the fly in question, which, how-
ever they admit, carries the infection from one person
to another.

You know that the hairs taken fi-om the pods of Doli-
chos pruriens and urens, L., commonly called Coivhage
and Cow-itch ^, occasion a most violent itching, but per-
haps are not aware that those of the caterpillars of seve-
ral Bombyces, a family of Moths, will produce the same
disagreeable effect. One of these is the procession moth,
(S. processioneay L.) of which Reaumur has given so
interesting an account. In consequence of their short
stiiF hairs sticking in his skin, after handling them, he
suffered extremely for several days ; and being ignorant
at first of the cause of the itching, and rubbing his eyes
with his hands, he brought on a swelling of the eye-lids,
so that he could scarcely open them. Ladies were af-
fected even by going too near the nest of the animal, and
found their necks full of troublesome tumours, occasion-
ed by short hairs, or fragments of hair, brought by the

* Cowhage has been administered with success as an anthelminthic,
as has likewise spun-glass pounded ; the spicula of these substances
destroying the worms. The hair of the caterpillars here alluded to,
and perliaps also of the larva of Bombyx Caja, (the Tiger-Moth,) might
probably be equally efficacious.

DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 131

wind*. Of tliis nature also is the famous Pityocampa
of tlie ancients, the moth of the fir {B. pityocaynpa, F.),
tlie hairs of which are said to occasion a very intense
degree of pain, heat, fever, itching and restlessness. It
was accounted by the Romans a very deleterious poison,
as is evident from the circumstance of the Cornelian law
^^ Dc sicariis" being extended to persons who admmi-
stered Pityocampa^.

In these cases the injury is the consequence of irrita-
tion produced by the hair of the animal ; but there are
facts on record, which prove that the juices of many in-
sects are equally deleterious. Amoreux, from a work of
Turner, an English writer on cutaneous diseases, has
given the following remarkable history of the ill ef-
fects produced by those of spiders. When Turner was
a young practitioner, he was called to visit a woman,
whose custom it was, every time she went into the cellar
with a candle, to burn the spiders and their webs. She
had often observed, Avhen she thus cruelly amused her-
self, that the odour of the burning spiders had so much
affected her head, that all objects seemed to turn round,
which was occasionally succeeded by faintings, cold
sweats, and slight vomitings : but, notwithstanding this,
she found so much pleasure in tormenting these poor
animals, that nothing could cure her of this madness,
till she met with the followinff accident : The legs of one
of these unhappy spiders happened to stick in the can-
dle, so that it could not disengage itself; and, the body
at length bursting, the venom was ejaculated into the

» Reaum. ii. 191-5. " Mouffet, 185. Plin. Hiof. Nat.

1. xxxviii. c. 9. Amoreux, 158.

K 2

132 DTRECT INJURIES CAl'SCD BV INSF.CTS.

eyes and upon the lips of its persecutrix. In conser-"
quence of this, one of the former became inflamed, the
latter swelled excessively, even the tongue and gums
were slightly affected, and a continual vomiting attended
these symptoms. In spite of every remedy the swelling
of the lips continued to increase, till at length an old wo-
man, by the simple application for fifteen days of the
leaves and juice of plantain, together with some spider's
web, ran away with all the glory of the cure ^. Ulloa
gives us a remarkable account of a species of Acarus, of a
fiery red colour, common in Popayan, called Coya or
Coyba, and usually found in the corners of walls and
among the herbage, the venom of which is of such ma-
lignity, that on crushing the insect, if any fall on the skin
of either man or beast, it immediately penetrates into the
flesh, and causes large tumours, which are soon succeed-
ed by death. Yet, he further observes, if it be crushed
between the palms of the hands, which are usually cal-
lous, no bad consequence ensues. People who travel along
the valleys of the Neyba, where these insects abound,
are warned by their Indian attendants, if they feel any
thing stinging them, or crawling on their neck or face,
not so much as to lift up their hand to the place, the texture
of the Coya being so delicate that the least force causes
them to burst, without which there is no danger, as they
seem otherwise harmless animals. The traveller points
out the spot where he feels the creature to one of his
companions, who, if it be a Coya, blows it away. If this
account does not exaggerate the deleterious quality of
the juices of this insect, it is the most venomous animal

» Amoreux, 310-212. •

DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 133

that is known ; for he describes it as much smaller than a
bug. The only remedy to which the natives have recourse
lor preventin*^ tlie ill crtecls arising from its venom is, on
the first aj)pearance of the swelling, to swing the patient
over tlui flame of straw or long grass, which they do with
great dexterity : after this operation lie is reckoned to be
out of danger. — The poisoned arrows which Ijulians em-
ploy against their enemies have been long celebrated.
The Coya may, in the western world, have furnished
the poison for this purpose. An author cjuoted in Lesser
tells us that an ant as big as a bee is sometimes used,
and that the wound inflicted by weapons tinctured with
their venom is incurable. Patterson also gives a recipe by
which the natives of the southern extremity of Africa pre-
pare what they reckon the most effectual poison for the
point of their arrows. They mix the juice of a species
of Euphorbia, and a caterpillar that feeds on a kind of su-
mach {R/uis, L.), and when the mixture is dried it is fit
or use.

And now I think you will allow that I have made out
a tolerable list of insects that attack or annoy man's
body externally, and a sufficiently doleful history of
them. That the subject, however, may be complete, I
shall next enumerate those that, not content with afflict-
ing him with exterior ])ain or evil, whether on the sur-
face or under the skin, bore into his flesh, descend even
into his stomach and viscera; derange his whole system,
and thus often occasion his death. The punitive insects
here employed are usually lan^aj of the various orders,
and they are the cause of that genus of diseases I before
noticed, and proposed to call Scokchiasis.

IS* DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

I shall begin my account with the first order of
Linne, because people in general seem not aware that
any beetles make their way into the human stomach. Yet
there is abundant evidence, which proves beyond con-;
troversy that the meal-worm {Tenehrio Molitor^ K), al-
though its usual food is flour, has often been voided both
"by male and female patients; and in one instance is sta-
ted to have occasioned death *. How these grubs should
get into the stomach it is difficult to say — perhaps the
eggs may have been swallowed in some preparation of
flour. But that the animal should be able to sustain the
heat of this organ, so far exceeding the temperature to
which it is usually accustomed, is the most extraordinary
circumstance of all. — Dr. Martin Lister, who to the skill
of the physician added the most profound knowledge of
nature, mentions an instance, communicated to him by
Mr. Jessop, of a girl who voided three hexapod larvae
similar to what are found in the carcases of birds ^, pro-
bably belonging either to the genus Dermestes, F., or
Byrrhis, L.: and in the German Ephemerides the case
also of a girl is recorded, from an abscess in the calf of
whose leg crept black worms resembling beetles'^.

The larvae of some beetle, as appears from the descrip-
tion, seem to have been ejected even from the lungs. Four
of these, of which the largest was nearly three quarters
of an inch long, were discovered in the mucus expelled
afler a severe fit of coughing by a lady afflicted with a
pulmonary disease; and similar larvae of a smaller size
were once afterwards discharged in the same way^.

=^Tiilpius, Obs. Med.], ii.c.51. t.7. f.3, Edinb. Med.andSurg.Joitrn.
n. 35. 42-48. Derham, Physic. Theol. 378. note b. Lowth, Philot.
Trans, iii. 1 35. " PkUos. Trans. 1 665. x. 39 1 . Shaw's Abridg. ii. 224.

« Mead, Med, Sacr. 105, '^London Medical Review, v. 340.

DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 135

No one would suppose that caterpillars, whicli feed
upon vegetable substances, could be met witli alive in
the stomach; yet Dr. Lister gives an account of a boy
who vomited up several, which, lie observes, had sixteen
legs*. The eggs perhaps might have been swallowed in
salad; and, as vegetables make a part of most people's
daily diet, enough might have passed into the stomach
to suj^port them when hatched. — Luine tells us that the
caterpillar of a moth [Crambus pinguinalis, F.), common
in houses, has also been found in a similar situation,
and is one of the worst of our insect infcsters. — In a
very old tract, which gives a figure of the insect, a cater-
pillar of the almost incredible length of the middle fin-
ger is said to have been voided from the nostrils of a
young man long afflicted with dreadfid pains in his
head''. — But the most extraordinary account with respect
to lepidopterous larvae (unless he has mistaken his in-
sects) is given by Azara, the Spanish traveller before
quoted; who says that in South America there is a large
brown moth, which deposits its young in a kind of saliva
upon the flesh of persons who sleep naked; these intro-
duce themselves under the skin without being perceiv-
ed, where they occasion swelling attended by inflam-
mation and violent pain. "When the natives discover it,
they squeeze out the larvae, which usually amount to five
or six*^.

But amongst all the orders, none is more fruitful in

" Philos. Trans, iibi supra.

*> Fulvius Angelinus etVincentius Aharius de ve7~me admirando per
nares egrexso. Ravennae 1610.

<^ Azara, 217. I cannot help suspecting this to be sj-nonymous with
the CEsfrui Ilovnnis next mentioned.

136 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

devourers of man thai\ the Dtjptera; and these are chiefly
to be found in the numerous tribe of the Muscidae. The
Gad-fly [(Estrus^l^.) you have, doubtless, often heard of,
and how sorely it annoys our cattle and other quadru-
peds; but I suspect have no notion that there is a species
appropriated to man. The existence, indeed, of this species
seems to have been overlooked by entomologists (though
it stands in Gmelin's edition of the Sy sterna Natura;^,
upon the authority of the younger Linne,) till Humboldt
and Bonpland mentioned it again. Speaking of the low
regions of the toiTid zone, whei'e the air is filled with
those myriads of mosquitos which render uninhabitable a
great and beautiful portion of the globe, they observe that
to these may be joined the Oestrus Hominis, which de-
posits its eggs in the skin of man, causing there painful
tumours^. Gmelin says that it remains beneath the skin
of the abdomen six months, penetratmg deeper, if it be
disturbed, and becoming so dangerous as sometimes to
occasion death. The imago he describes as being of a
brown colour, and about the size of the common house-
fly; so that it is a small species compared with the rest of
the genus. Even the gad-fly of the ox, leaving its
proper food, has been known to oviposit in the jaw of a
woman, and the bots produced from the eggs finally
caused her death '^. — Other flies also of various kinds thus
penetrate into us, either preying upon our flesh, or get-
ting into our intestines, Leeuwenhoek mentions the case
of a woman whose leg had been enlarging with glandular
bodies for some years. Her surgeon gave him one that

=> From Pallas N. Nord. Beytr. i. 157-
•' Essaisur la Geograph. des Plantes, 136.
<^ Clark in Linn, Trans, iii, 333, note.

DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 137

he had cut from it, in wliich were many small magpjots:
these he fed with flesh till tliey assumctl the pupa, when
they produced a fly as large as the flesh-fly^. — A patient
of Dr. Reeve of Norwich, after suflering for some time
great pain, was at last relieved by voiding a considerable
number of maggots, wiiicli agree precisely with those
described by De Oeer as tlie hirva; of his Musca domes-
tica minor, a fly which he speaks of as very common in
apartments'". — In Paraguay the flesh-flies are said to be
unconnnonly numerous and noxious. Azara relates •= that,
after a storm, when the heat was excessive, he was assailed
by such an army of them, that in less than half an hour
his clothes were quite white with their eggs, so that he
was forced to scrape them off with a knife ; adding, that
he has known instances of persons, who, after having bled
at the nose in their sleep, were attacked by the most violent
head-aches; when at length several great maggots, the
off'sjiring of these flies, issuing from their nostrils, gave
them relief. — In Jamaica a large blue fly buzzes about the
sick in the last stages of fever ; and when they sleep or doze
with their mouths open, the nurses find it very difficult to
prevent these flies from laying their eggs in the nose,
mouth, or gums. An instance is recorded of a lady who,
after recovering from a fever, fell a victim to the maggots
of this fl}', which from the nose found their way through
the OS cribriforme into the cavity of the skull, and after-
wards into the brain^. One of the most shocking cases of
Scolechiasis I ever met with is related in Bell's Weekly

='Lecuw. Ejiist. Oct. 17, 1687. '' Edinb. Med. and Surg. Journ.
ubi supra. De Gccr, vi. 2fi, 27. "^ 216.

"^ Lcinpricre On the Diseases of the Army in Jamaica, ii. 182.

138 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

Messenget' in the following words : " On Thursday, June
25, died at Asbornby, [Lincolnshire,) John Page, a pau-
per belonging to Silk-Willoughby, under circumstances
truly singular. He being of a restless disposition, and
not choosing to stay in the parish workhouse, was in the
habit of strollmg about the neighbouring villages, subsist-
ing on the pittance obtained from door to door : the sup-
port he usually received from the benevolent was bread
and meat ; and after satisfying the cravings of nature, it
was his custom to deposit the surplus provision, particularly
the meat, betwixt his shirt and skin. Having a consider-
able portion of this provision in store, so deposited, he
was taken rather unwell, and laid himself down in a field
in the parish of Scredington — when fi-om the heat of the
season at that time, the meat speedily became putrid, and
was of course struck by the flies: these not only proceed-
ed to devour the inanimate pieces of flesh, but also literal-
ly to prey upon the living substance ; and when the
wretched man was accidentally found by some of the in-
habitants, he was so eaten by the maggots that his death
seemed inevitable. After clearing away as well as they were
able these shocking vermin, those who found Page con-
veyed him to Asbornby, and a surgeon was immediately
procured, who declared that his body was in such a state
that dressing it must be little short of instantaneous death;
and in fact the man did survive the operation but a few
hours. When first found, and again when examined by the
surgeon, he presented a sight loathsome in the extreme;
white maggots of enormous size were crawling in and upon
his body, which they had most shockingly mangled, and
the removing of the external ones served only to render

DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 139

the sight more horrid*." — A medical friend of mine, at
Ipswich, gave me this winter an apode larva voided by
a pei'son of tliat place with his urine, whieh I now preserve
in spirits and can show you when you visit nie. It appears
to me to belong to the Diptcra order, yet not to the fly
tribe [Muscid(s\ but rather to the Tipulida, with which
however it does not seem to agree so entirely as to take
away all doubt. It is a very singular larva, and I can
find none in any author that I have had an opportunity
of consulting which at all resembles it. That you may
know it, should you chance to meet with it, I shall here
describe it. Body, three fourths of an inch in length, and
about a line in breadtli; opaque, of a pale yellow colour;
cylindrical, tapering somewhat at each extremity; con-
sistuiff of twenty articulations without the head: Head
reddish brown, heartshaped, much smaller than the fol-
lowing joint; armed with two imguiform mandibles; with
a biarticulate palpus attached exteriorly to the base of each.
These mandibles appear to be moved by a narrow black
central tendon mider the dorsal skin terminating a little
beyond the base of the first segment; besides this, there
are four others, tw^o on each side of it, the outer ones di-
verging, much slenderer, and very short. The last or anal
joint of the body very minute; exerting two short, filiform
horns, or rather respiratory organs. I could discover, in
this animal, no respiratory plates, such as are found in
the larvae of Muscida?, nor were the tracheae visible.
When given to me, it was alive and extremely active,
writhing itself into various contortions with great agility.
It moved, like other dipterous larvae, by means of its man-

* In passing through tliis parish last spring, I inquired of the niail-
coachman whether he had heard of this storv; and he said the fact
was well known.

140 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

dibles. Upon wetting my fingers more than once, to take
it up when it had fallen from a table upon which it was
placed, the saline taste with which it was imbued was so
powerful that it was some time before it was dissipated
from my mouth. — I shall only mention one more instance,
because it is a singular one. The larva oi Elophilus peyi-
dulus, F., a fly peculiarly formed by nature for inhabiting
fluids, has been found in the stomach of a woman *.

You will smile when I tell you that I have met with the
prescription of a famous urine-doctor, in which he recom-
mends to his credulous patient to take a certam number
of sow bugs per diem, by this name distinguishing, as I
suppose, Oniscus Armadillo, L., once a very favourite re-
medy. What effect they produced in this case I was not
informed; but the learned Bonnet relates that he had
seen a certificate of an English physician, dated July 1 763,
stating that, some time before, a yomig woman who had
swallowed these animals alive, as is usually done, threw
up a prodigious number of them of all sizes, which must
have bred in her stomach ''. — Another apterous species
appears to have been detected in a still more remarkable
situation. Hermann, the author of the admirable 3Ie-
moire Apterologique, whose untimely death is so much to
be lamented, informs us that an Acarus figured and de-
scribed in his work [A. marginatus, H.) was observed
by his artist running on the corpus callosum of the brain
of a patient in the military hospital at Strasbourg, which
had been opened but a minute before and the two hemi-
spheres and the^;/fl! mater ]\iiit separated. He adds that
this is not the first time that insects have been found in

« Fkilos. Man, jx. 366. " Bonnet, v. 144.

ninrcT iN.iriuF.s caused by ixsects. Ill

tl»e brain. Coi'nclius Goirmia, in his Cosmocrilica, p. 24'1,
says that on dissecting the brain of a woman there were
found in it abundance of vermicles andi jninaiscs^.

It was customary in many countries in ancient times
to punish certain malefactors by exposing them to be de-
vovned by wild beasts : but to expose them to insects for
the same purpose was a refinement in cruelty, wliich
seems to iiave been peculiar to the despots of Persia.
We are informed that the most severe punisluuent
amongst the Persians was that of shutting up the offender
between two boats of equal size ; they laid him in one of
them upon liis back, and covered him with the other, his
hands, feet, and head being left bare. I lis face, wliich
was placed full in tlie sun, they moistened with honey,
thus inviting the flies and wasps, which tormented him
no less than the swarms of maggots that were bred in his
excrements and body, and devoured him to the very en-
trails. He was compelled to take as much food as was
necessary to sup]:)ort life, and thus existed sometimes for
several days. Plutarch informs us that Mithridates, whom
Artaxerxes Longimanus condemned to this punishment,
lived seventeen days in the utmost agony ; and that, the
uppermost boat being taken off at his death, they found
his flesh all consumed, and myriads of worms gnawing
his bowels ^. Could any natural objects be made more
horrible and effectual instruments of torture than i?isecfs
were in this most diabolical invention of tyranny ?

In this enumeration of evils derived from insects, I
must not wholly pass over the serious and sometimes
fatal effects produced upon some persons by eating honey,

* Mem. Aptcrolog. /!).

•" Univeranl Ilhton/, iv. 70. Kd. 1771^'.

142 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

or even by drinking mead. I once knew a lady upon
whom these acted like poison, and have heard of instances
in which death was the consequence. Sometimes, when
bees extract their honey from poisonous plants, such re-
sults have not been confined to individuals of a particular
habit or constitution. A remarkable proof of this is given
by Dr. Barton in the fifth volume of The American Phi-
losophical Transactions. In the autumn and winter of the
year 1790, an extensive mortality was produced amongst
those who had partaken of the honey collected in the
neighbourhood of Philadelphia. The attention of the
American Government was excited by the general di-
stress, a minute inquiry into the cause of the mortality
ensued, and it was satisfactorily ascertained that the honey
had been chiefly extracted from the flowers of Kalmia
latifolia.

Amongst other direct injuries occasioned by these
creatures, perhaps, out of regard for the ladies, I ought
to notice the alarm which many of them occasion to the
loveliest part of the creation. When some females re-
tire from society to avoid a wasp ; others faint at the
sight of a spider ; and others, again, die with terror if
they hear a death-watch : these groundless apprehensions
and superstitious alarms are as much real evils to those
who feel them, as if they were well founded. But having
already adverted to this subject, I shall here only quote
the observation of a wise man, that " Fear is a betraying
of the succours that reason ofFereth *." The best remedy,
therefore, in such cases is going to reason for succour.
In a few instances, indeed, the evil may take root in a

• Wisd. xvii. 1:2.

DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. US

constitutional defect, for there seems to be some founda-
tion for the doctrine of natural antipathies: but, generally
speaking, in consequence of the increased attention to
Natural History, the reign of imaginary evils is ceasing
amongst us, and what used to shake the stout hearts of
our superstitious ancestors with anile terrors, is become
a subject of interesting incjuiry to their better informed
descenilants, even of the weaker sex.

Aiul now, my friend, I flatter myself you feel disposed
to own the truth of my position, liowever it might startle
you at first, and will candidly acknowledge that I have
proved the empire of these despised insects over man's
person : and that, instead of being a race of insignificant
creatures, which we may safely overlook, as having no
concern with, they may, in the hands of Divine I'rovi-
dence, and even of man, become to us fearful instruments
of evil and of punishment. I shall next endeavour to
give you some idea of the indirect injuries which they
occasion us by attacking our property, or interfering with
our pleasure or comfort — but this must be the subject of
another letter.

I am, &c.

LETTER V.

INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

INDIRECT INJURIES.

XiAVING detailed to you the direct injuries which we
suffer from insects, I am now to call your attention to
their indirect attacks upon us, or the injury which they
do our property ; and under this view also you will own,
with the fullest conviction, that they are not beings that
can with prudence or safety be disregarded or despised.
Our property, at least that part exposed to the annoyance
of these creatures, may be regarded as consisting of ani-
mal and vegetable productions, and that in two states ;
when they are living, namely, and after they are dead. I
shall therefore endeavour to give you a sketch of the mis-
chief which they occasion, first to our living animal pro-
perty, then to our living vegetable property ; and lastly
to our dead stocky whetiier animal or vegetable.

Next to our own persons, the animals which we em-
ploy in our business or pleasures, or fatten for food, in-
dividually considered, are the most valuable part of our
possessions — and at certain seasons, hosts of insects of
various kinds are incessant in their assaults upon most
of them. — To begin with that noble animal the horse. —
See him, when turned out to his pasture, unable to touch
a morsel of the food he has earned by his labours. He flies

INDir.KCT IN.IlMUluS CArsKI) BY INSECTS. ItS

to tlio sluule, I'viclc'iitly in i>ivat uneasiness, where lie
stands continually stamping from the pain produced by
th(> insertion of the weapons sheathed in the proboscis of
a little Hy [Sfuinuxt/s calcitra7is) before noticed as attack-
ing- ourselves '. This alights upon him sometimes in one
place and sometimes in another, and never lets him rest
Mhile the day lasts. — See him again when in harness and
lravellin<;. He is bathed in blood flowinj; from inni;-
jnerable wounds made by the knives and lancets of va-
rious horse-flies {Tdbaiius, L.), which assail him as he
goes, ajul allow him no resjnte'^; and consider that even
this is nothing to what he suffers in otlier climates from
the same pest. In North America, vast clouds of dif-
ferent species — so abundant as to obscure every distant
object, and so severe in their bite as to merit the appella-
tion of burning flies — cover and torment the horses to
such a degree as to excite compassion even in the hearts
of the pack-horsemen. Some of them are nearly as big
as humble-bees ; and, when they pierce the skin and
veins of the imhappy beast, make so large an orifice that,
besides what they suck, the blood flows down its neck,
sides, and shoulders in large drops like tears, till, to use
Bartram's expression, " they are all in a gore of blood."
Acari also, both the dog-tick and the American tick be-
fore mentioned, especially the latter, infest the horse.
Kalm affirms, that he has seen the under parts of the
belly, and other places of the body, so covered by them,
that he could not introduce the point of a knife between
them. They were deeply buried in the flesh; and in

■ Sec above, p. 110. '' Once travelling through Cambridge-

shire with a brother entomologist in a gig, our horse was in the con-
dition here described, from the attack of Tahamis rusticus, L.

VOL. I. L

146 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

one instance that he witnessed, the miserable creature
was so exhausted by continual suction, that it fell, and
afterwards died in great agonies ^.

No quadruped is more infested by the CEstriis, or gad-
fly, sometimes also called the breese, than the horse. In
this country no fewer than three species attack it. The
most common sort, known by the name of the horse-bee
(6E. Equi, Clark), deposits its eggs (which being covered
with a slimy substance adhere to the hairs) on such parts
of the body as the animal can reach with its tongue ; and
thus, unconscious of what it is doing, it unwarily introduces
into its own citadel the troops of its enemy. — Another
species [CE. hccmorrlioidalis^ L.) is still more troublesome
to it, ovipositing upon the lips ; and in its endeavours to
effect this, from the excessive titillation it occasions, giving
the poor beast the most distressing uneasiness. At the
sight of this fly horses are always much agitated, tossing
their heads about in the air to drive it away ; and, if this
does not answer, galloping off" to a distant part of their
pasture, and, as their last resource, taking refuge in the
water, where the gad-flies never follow them. We learn
from Reaumur, that in France the grooms, when they
observe any bots (which is the vulgar name for the larvse
and pupae of CEstri) about the anus of a horse or in its
dung, thrust their hand mto the passage to search for
more ; but this seems a useless precaution, which must
occasion the animal great pain to answer no good end ;
for when the bots are passing through the body, havmg
ceased feeding, they can do no further injury. In Sweden,
as De Geer informs us, they act much more sensibly :

a De Goer, vii. 158.

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 14-7

those that have the care of horses arc accustomed to clean
their nioiiths and throats with a particuhu* kind ot"l)rush,
by which method they free them from these disagreeable
inmates before they have got into the stomach, or can be
at all prejudicial to them *.

Providence has doubtless created these anhnals to an-
swer some beneficial jturpose; and Mr. Clark's judicious
conjectures are an index which points to the very kind
of good our cattle may derive from them, as acting the
part of perpetual stimuli or blisters : yet when they ex-
ceed certain limits, as is often the case with similar ani-
mals employed for purposes etjually beneficial, they be-
come certainly the causes of disease, and sometimes of
death.

How troublesome and teasing is that cloud of flies
{Musca mdcorica^ L.) which you must often have no-
ticed in your summer rides, hovering round the head and
neck of your horse, accompanying him as he goes, and
causing a perpetual tossing of the former ^ ! — And still
more annoying in Lapland, as we learn from Linne "^j is
the furious assault of the minute horse-gnat, [Culcx eqiii-
7iuSf L.) which infests these beasts in infinite numbers,
running under the mane and amongst the hair, and
piercing the skin to suck their blood. — An insect of the
same genus is related to attack them in a particular di-
strict in India in so tremendous a manner as to cause in-
curable cancers, which finally destroy them"*. — But of
all the insect tormentors of these useful creatures, there
is none more trying to them than the forest-fly Hippo-

* De Gcer, vi.295. •> Ama:n. Acad. iii. 358.

c Linn. Flor. Lapp. 376. Lnch. Lapp. i. 233, 231.
*» Life of General Thomas, 186.
L 2

l-tS INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

hosca equina, L.). Attaching themselves to the parts
least covered with hair, particularly under the belly be-
tween the hhid legs, they irritate the quietest horse, and
make him kick so as often to hazard the safety of his
rider or driver. This singular animal runs sideways or
backwards like a crab ; and, being furnished with an un-
usual number of claws, it adheres so firmly that it is not
easy to txike it oft"; and even if you succeed in this, its
substance is so hard, that by the utmost pressure of your
finger and thumb it is difficult to kill it ; and if you let
it go with life, it will immediately return to the charge.
— Amongst the insect plagues of horses, I should also
have enumerated the larva of Curadio parapledims, L.,
which Linne considers as the cause of the equine disease,
called in Sweden, after the Phellandrium aquaticum,
" Stdkra,^' had not the observations of the accurate De
Geer rendered it doubtful whether the insect be at all
connected with this malady *,

Another quadruped contributing greatly to our domes-
tic comfort, from which we derive a considerable portion
of our animal food, and which, on account of its patient
and laborious character when employed in agriculture, is
an excellent substitute for the horse, (you will directly
perceive I am speaking of the ar, whether male or female,)
is also not exempt from insect domination. At certain
seasons the whole terrified herd, with their tails in the
air, or turned upon their backs, or stiffly stretched out
in the direction of the spine, g-allop about their pastures,
making the country re-echo with their lowings, and find-
ing no rest till they get into the water. Their appear-

•' Linn. It. Scand. 183. De Geer, v. 227-30.

INDIRKCT INJUIUES CAUSED BV INSECTS. \ iU

ancc and motions arc at this time so grotescjuc, clumsy,
and seemingly unnatural, that wc are tempted rather to
laugh at the poor beasts than to pity them, though evi-
dently in a situation of great terror and distress. The
cause of all this agitiition and restlessness is a small gad-
fly, (ffi. Bovisy L.,) less than the horse-bee, the object of
which, thougli it be not to bite them, but merely to ovi-
posit in their hides, is not put into execution witliout
giving them considerable pain. ^ irgil, in his Georgics,
has beautifully and accurately described the eflectsofthc
approach and assault of the CEstrus upon the cattle. As
the passage has not been very correctly translated, I
shall turn poet on the occasion, and attem})t to give it
you in a new dress.

Through wa\'inp c'"oves '' where Selo's torrent flows.
And where, Alborno, thy green Ilex grows,
Myriads of insects flutter in the gloom
((Estrus in Greece, Asilus nam'd at Rome)
Fierce and of cruel hum. By the dire sound
Driven from the woods and shad} glens around
The universal herds in terror fly ;
'l^lieir lowiiigs shake the woods and shake the sky,
And Negro's arid shore

When oxen are employed in agriculiure, the attack
of this fly is often attended with great clanger, since they
then become perfectly unmanageable ; and, whetlicr in
harness or yoked to the plough, will run directly for-
ward. At the season when the Oestrus infests them,
close attention should be paid, and their harness so con-
structed that they may easily be let loose.

' Reaumur observes that the Q'lstri infest cattle principally in
woy<I!and 'oiuitrics, and not in tii'' plain-, h. ."lOIJ.

150 ■ INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

Reaumur has minutely described the ovipositor, or sin-
gular organ by which these insects are enabled to bore a
round hole in the skin of the animal and deposit their
eggs in the wound. The anus of the female is furnished
with a tube of a corneous substance, consisting of four
pieces, which, like the pieces of a telescope, are retractile
within each other. The last of these terminates in five
points, three of which are longer than the others, and
hooked : when united together they form an instrument
very much like an auger or gimlet ; only, having these
points, it can bite with more effect *. He thinks the in-
fliction of the wound is not attended by much pain, ex-
cept where very sensible nerves are injured, when the
animal, appearing to be seized with a kind of phrensy,
begins to gambol, and run with such swiftness that no-
thing can stop it. From this semblance of temporary
madness in oxen when pursued and bored by the CEstrus,
the Greeks applied the term to any sudden fit of fury or
violent impulse in the human species, calling such ebulli-
tions an CEstnis. The female fly is observed to be very
expeditious in oviposition, not more thiin a few seconds ;
and while she is performing the operation, the animal
attempts to lash her off", as it does other flies, with its
tail. The circular hole, made by the auger just described,
always continues open, and increases in diameter as the
larva increases in size ; thus enabling it to receive a suf-
ficient supply of air by means of its anal respiratory
plates, which are usually near the orifice. — But though
these insects thus torment and terrify our cattle, they do

^ Plate XVI. Fig. 3. Mr. Clark, however, is of opinion that the
CEstrus does not pierce the skin of the animal, but only glues its eggs
to it. Essay on (he Bats of Horses and other Anwiah, p. 47.

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 151

them no material injury. Indeed they occasion consi-
derable tumours under the skin, where the bots reside,
varying in number from three or four to thirty or forty ;
but these seem unattended by any pain, and are so far
from being injurious, that they are rather regarded as
proofs of the goodness of the animal, since these flies
only attack young and healthy subjects. The tanners
also prefer those hides that have the greatest number
of bot-holes in them, which are always the best and
strongest ^.

The Stomoxys, and several of the other flies before enu-
merated, as well as the dog and American ticks, are as pre-
judicial to the ox as to the horse. One species of Hip-
pobosca I have reason to believe is ap})ropriated to them;
yet, since a single specimen only has hitherto been taken'',
little can be said with respect to it. — A worse pest than
any hitherto enumerated, is a mmute fly, concerning the
genus of which there is some doubt, Fabricius consider-
ing it as a llhagio, {11. columbascJicnsis,) and Latreille as
a Simulium <^ ; but to whatever genus it may belong, it is
certainly a most destructive little creature. In Servia
and the Bannat it attacks the cattle in infinite numbers,
penetrates, according to Fabricius, their generative or-
gans, but according to other accovmts their nose and
ears, and by its poisonous bite destroys them in the short

^ Much of the information here collected is taken from Roaum.
iv. Mem. 12; and Clark in Linn. Trans, iii. 289.

^ The writer of the present letter is possessor of this specimen,
which he took on himself in a field where oxen were feeding.
Plate V. Fig. 1.

<■ In the Syxtema AntUaturum (p. 5G) Fabricius most strangely
considers this insect as synonjiiious with Culcx repta^u, L. calling it
Scatnpsc rrptam, and dropping his former reference to Pallas, and
account of its injurious pro()t'rtici.

152 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED DY INSECTS.

space of four or five hours. Much injury was sustained
in 1813 from this insect in the palatinate of Arad in Hun-
gary and in the Bannat ; in Banlack not fewer than two
hundred horned cattle perishing from its attacks, and in
Versetz, five hundred. It appears towards the latter end
of April or beginning of May in such indescribable swarms
as to resemble clouds, proceeding as some think from
the region of Mehadia, but according to others from
Turkey. Its approach is the signal for universal alarm.
The cattle fly from their pastures; and the herdsman
hastens to shut up his cows in the house, or, when at a
distance fi-om home, to kindle fires, the smoke of which
is found to drive off this terrible assailant. Of this the
cattle are sensible, and as soon as attacked run to\Aards
the smoke, and are generally preserved by it *.

Tabani in this country do not seem to annoy our oxen
so much as they do our horses : perhaps for this immu-
nity they may be indebted to the thickness of their hides ;
but in some parts of Africa insects of this tribe do incre-
dible mischief. What would you think, should you be
told that one species of fly drives both inhabitants and
their cattle from a whole district? Yet the terrible Tsali-
salya or %imh of Bruce (and the world seems now dis|X)sed
to give more credit to the accoiuits of that traveller) has
power to produce such an effect. This fly, which is a
native of Abyssinia, both from its habits and the figure,
appears to belong to Latreille's genus Pangonia, taken
from Tabanus, L., and perhaps is congenerous with the
(Est r us of the Greeks''.

■• Fabr. Ent. Sijat. Em. iv. ^7<>. !^-. Latr. ///s/. Xat &:c. \\x. ^28.'?.

L/'ipz. Zcif. Jul. 5, 1813. quoted iu Gormar's Ufag. dcf Eiif. ii. 18.">.

'' It is by no means clear that tlic (Ext run i>f modern entomologist^

INUIUECT INJl'HlES t ALSKl) BV INSECTS. 153

Small as this insect is, we must acknowledge the ele-
phant, rhinoceros, lion and tiger vastly his inferior.
The appearance, nay the very sound oi" it occasions
more trepidation, movements and disorder both in the
human and brute creation, tlian whole herds of the
most ferocious wild beasts in tenfokl greater lumibers
than they ever are would produce. As soon as this plague
ap}>ears, and their buzzing is heard, all the cattle for-
sake their food, and run wildly about the plain till they
die worn out with fatigue, fright, and hunger. No re-
medy remains for the residents on such spots but to
leave the black earth and hasten down to the sands of
Atbara, and there they remain while the rains last. Ca-

is synonymous with the insects which the Greeks distinguish by that
name. Aristotle not only describes these as hlood-snckvrs (His/. Ani-
vuil. 1. viii. c. 11.) but also as furnished with a strong jmtbosch (1. 4.
c. 70- ^^6 observes likewise that they are produced from an animal
inhabiting the waters, in the vicinity of which they most abound
(1. viii. c. 7.)' And ^lian {Hist. 1. vi. c, 38.) gives nearly the same
account. Comparing the Gilstrus with the M3'ops (synonymous per-
haps with Tabanus, Latr., except that Aristotle affirms that its larva;
live in wood, 1. v. c. 19.) lie says, the (Estrus for a fly is one of tlic
largest ; it has a stiff" and large sting, (meaning a proboscis,) and
emits a certain humming and harsh sound — but the Myops is like the
Cynomyia — it hums more loudly than the Qilstrus, though it has a
smaller sting.

These characters and circumstances do not at all agree with tJic
modern CEstrus, which, so far from being a blood-sucker furnished
with a strong proboscis, has scarcely any mouth. It shuns also the
vicinity of water, to which our cattle generally fly as a refuge from
it. It seems more probable that the CEstrus of Greece was related
to Bruce's Zimb, represented in his figure with a long proboscis,
which makes its appearance in the neighbourhood of rivers, and be-
longs, perhaps, to Latreille's genus Paugo)ii(t, as observed above,
( Tanijglossa, Meig.) or to his Ncmrstrina. Olivier, indeed, speaks of
the former genus as frequenting flowers like the Hombylii : but this
the male Tabani do, while the females are furious blood-suckers. Sec
Latr. Hist. Xnt. \\\. ;318 ; and Gen. Crust. .5- Im. iv. ^81, :i07.

154* INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

mels, and even elephants and rhinoceroses, though the
two last coat themselves with an armour of mud, are at-
tacked by this winged assassin and afflicted with nume-
rous tumours. All the inhabitants of the sea-coast of
Melinda down to Cape Gardefan, to Saba an J the south
of the Red Sea, are obliged in the beginning of the rainy
season to remove to the next sand to prevent all their
stock of cattle from being destroyed. This is no partial
emigration — the inhabitants of all the countries from the
mountains of Abyssinia northward, to the confluence of
the Nile and Astaboras, are once a year obliged to
change their abode and seek pi'otection in the sands of
Beja ; nor is there any alternative or means of avoiding
this, though a hostile band were in the way capable of
spoiling them of half their substance ^. This fly is truly
a Beelzebub^ : and perhaps it was this, or some species
related to it, that was the prototype of the Philistine idol
worshiped under that name and in the form of a fly.

I must not conclude this subject of insects hurtful to
our cattle, without noticing a beetle much talked of by
the ancients for its mischievous properties in this respect.
You will soon and rightly conjecture that I am speaking
of the Buprestis'^i so called from the injury which it has
been supposed to occasion to oxen or kine.

Modern writers have been much divided in their opi-
nion to what genus this celebrated insect belongs. All
indeed have regarded it as of the Coleoptera order ; but
here their agreement ceases. Linn6 should seem to

» Brace's Travels, 8vo. ii. 315.

*> Heb. 3inT bj?l literally " Lord-Fly." See 2 Kings, i. 3 ; and Bo-
chart. Hierozoic. ps. ii, 1. 4. c. 9. p. 490.

«= Burn-Cow or Ox, from /3of ? and 'Trq^nda inflammo. M. Latreille
translates it Crhc-bauf, but improperly.

INDIRKCT IN.TUKIE.S CAUSLD BY INSECTS. 155

have looked upon it as a species of tlie genus to which
he lias iriven its name ; but these, being timber insects,
are not very likely to be swallowed by cattle with their
iboil. Geollroy thinks it to be a Carahus or CIchuIclu,
but with as little reason, since the species of these genera
do not feed amongst the herbage ; and though they are
sometimes found running there, yet their motions are so
ia}>id, that it is not very likely that cattle would often
swallow them while feeding.

M. Latreille, in an ingenious essay on this insect',
suspects it to belong to the genus Melue, F. ; and as this
feeds u}K")n herbs, [M. Proscaralxcus, L. and M. x>/olri-
ccHs, E. B. upon the Ranunculi, so widely disseminated
in our pastures,) his opinion seems to rest upon more solid
grounds than that of his predecessors ;.but yet I think the
insect in question rather belongs to Mj/labris, Y. and for
the followuig reason.

In order rightly to ascertain what insect this really
ivas, we must endeavour to trace it in the country in
which it received its name and character. This coun-
try was certainly Greece ; and there such an animal, re-
taining nearly its old name, and accused of being the
cause of the same injury to cattle, still exists. For Belon
informs us that on Mount Adios there is found awino-ed
insect like the blister-beetle, but yellow, larger, and of a
v?i-y offensive smell, which feeds upon various plants,
and is called Voiqvisti by the Caloyers or Monks, who
assert that when horses or other cattle even feed upon
the herbs which the animals have touched, they die from
inflanmiation, and that it is an immediate poison to
oxen*^. This therefore most probably was the Bupres-

'' Annalcs du Muiium.—X'' Ann. N" xi. p. 129.
^ Oburvatiuiu dc plmicurs SingiJarUcs. ij'c-. I. i. c. 15. p. 73 of
the Edition in Sir .Fo-cph Banks'- Li!>ri>rv.

156 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

tis of the Greek writers ; and as Pliny usually compiled
from them, it may be regarded as his also, which he
tells us was a caustic insect and prepared in the same
manner as the blister-beetle^. He further observes that
it was scarce in Italy. The Greek insect of M^unt Athos
M. Latreille supposes to be a Mylabris, and in this I
agree with him ; and therefore this is the proper genus
to which the original Greek Buprestis, the true type of
the insect in question, ought to be referred, and not
Meloe.

Whether this animal be really guilty to the extent of
which it is accused, admits of considerable doubt; but
as I have not the means of ascertaining this, I shall leave
the question for others who are better informed to
decide.

But, of all our cattle none are more valuable and im-
portant to us than our Jlocks ; to them we look not only
for a principal part of our food, but also for clothing
and even light. Thick as is their coat of wool, it does
not shield them from the attack of all-subduing insects :
on the contrary it ajffords a comfortable shelter to one of
their enemies of this class, regarded by Linnc as a spe-
cies of Hippohosca, but properly separated from that ge-
nus by Latreille under the name of Mclophagm. This
is commonly called the sheep-louse, and is so tenacious
of life, that we are told by Ray it will exist in a fleece
twelve months after it is shorn, and its excrements are said
to give a green tinge to the wool very difficult to be dis-
charged.— You have doubtless often observed in the
lieat of the day the sheep shaking their heads and strik-
ing the ground violently with their fore feet ; or running
away and getting into nils, dry dusty spots or gravel
» Hist. Nat. 1. xxix. c. 4.

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 157

pits, where crowding together they hold their noses close
to tlie ground. Tlie object of all these actions and
movements is to keep the gad-fly appropriated to them
{G'l. Oris, L.) from getting at their nostrils, on the inner
margin of which they lay their eggs, from whence the
maggots make their way into the head, feeding in the
maxillary and frontal sinuses on the mucilage there pro-
duced. \\"hen full-grown, they fall through the nostrils
to the ground and assume the pupa. Whether the ani-
mal suffers much pain from these troublesome assailants
is not ascertained. Sometimes the maggots make their
way even into the braiti. I have been informed by a
very accurate and intelligent friend, that, on opening the
head of one of his sheep which died in consequence of a
vertigo, three maggots were found in it in a line just
above the eyes, and that behind them there was a blad-
der of water. — Perhaps you are not aware that the bots
we are speaking of, or rather those in the head of goats,
have been prescribed as a remedy for the epilepsy, and
that from the tripod of Delphos. Yet so we are told on
the authority of Alexander Trallien. WTiether Demo-
crates, who consulted the oracle, was cured by this re-
medy does not appear ; the story shows how^ever that the
ancients were aware of the station of these larvce. — The
common saying that a whimsical person is maggoti/, or
has got maggots in his head, perhaps arose from the
freaks the sheep have been observed to exhibit when in-
fested by their bots. — The flesh-fly is also a great an-
noyance to the fleecy tribe, especially in fenny countries ;
and if constant attention be not paid them, they are soon
devoured by its insatiable larva;. In Lincolnshire, the
principal profit of the druggists is derived fi'om the sale

158 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

of a mercurial ointment used to destroy them. — In tro-
pical countries the sheep frequently suffer from the ants.
Bosman relates that when in Guinea, if one of liis was
attacked by them in the night, which often happened, it
was invariably destroyed, and was so expeditiously de-
voured that in the mornmg only the skeleton would be
left.

Of our domestic animals the least infested by insects,
I mean as to the number of species that attack it, is the
smne. With the exception of its louse, which seems to
annoy it principally by exciting a violent itching, it is
exposed to scarcely any other plague of this class, unless
we may suppose that it is the bitmg of flies, which in hot
weather drives it to " its wallowing in the mire,"

Under this head we may include the deer tribe, for,
though often wild, those kept in parks may strictly be
deemed domestic ; and the rein-deer is quite as much so
to the Laplander, as our oxen and kine are to us. We
learn from Reamnur that the fallow-deer is subject to the
attack of two species of gad-fly : one, which, like that of
the ox, deposits its eggs in an orifice it makes in the
skin of the animal, and so produces tumours ; and an-
other in imitation of that of the sheep, ovipositing in
such a manner that its larvae when hatched can make
their way into the head, where they take their station in
a cavity near the pharynx. He relates a curious notion
of the hunters v/ith respect to these two species. Con-
ceiving them both to be the same, they imagine that
they mine for themselves a painful path under the skin
to the root of the horns ; which is their common rendez-
vous from all parts of the body ; where, by uniting their
labours and gnawing indefatigably, they occasion the

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 15^

finnual cnstinpr of these ornamental as well as powerful
sirms. Tills fable, improbable and ridiculous as it is,
has had the sanction of grave authorities*. — The CEstri
last mentioned inhabit, in considerable numbers, two
fleshy bags as big as a hen's egg, and of a similar sha})e,
near the root of the tongue. Reaumur took between
sixty and seventy bets from one of them, and even then
some had escaped. "What other purpose these two re-
markable purses are intended to answer, it is not'easy to
conjecture. He supposes that the parent fly must enter
the nostrils of the deer, and pass down the air passages
to oviposit in them : but probably such a manoeuvre is
unnecessary, since there seems no reason, supposing the
eggs to be laid in tlie nostrils, why the larva when
hatched cannot itself make its way down to the above
station, as easily as that of the sheep into the maxillary
smuses. Or, which perhaps is more likely, when the
animal draws in the air, the eggs or larvae may be car-
ried down with it, in both cases, to the place assigned to
them by Providence^.

No animal, however, is so cruelly tormented by QEstri
as the rein-dcci' ; for besides one synonymous apparently
with this of the deer {(E. nasalise L.) from which they
endeavour to relieve themselves by snorting and blow-
ing *=, they have a second which produces bots under

■ Reaum. v. G9. Didionnaire de Trcvoux, article Cerf.

*» For the account of" the CEstriis, of the deer, see Reaum. v. 67-77.

•^ Linn. Lach. Lapp. ii. 45. In the passage here referred to, Linne
speaks of two species of GEstrus, though the mode of expression in-
dicates that he considered them as the same. One was CE. riasalis
from which they freed themselves by snorting, «&c., the otlier Qi'.
Tarandivihich formed the pustules in their backs. In Syst. Nat. 96i).
3. he strangely observes under the former species, " Habitat in cquo-

160 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

theii' skin ; not improbably the same species that in a
similar way attacks the latter, as I have stated above.
We have heard that the vaccine disease is derived from
the cow and the horse, and the small-pox is said to Imve
oriijinated in the heels of the camel : but neither the in-
genious Dr. Jenner nor any other writer on this subject
has informed us that the rein-deer is subject to the dis-
temper last named ; yet Linne quotes the learned work
of a Swedish physician on Syphilis^ who gravely gives
this as a fact ^ ! ! The inoculator, in truth, is the gad-fly,
the tumours it causes are the pustules, and its larvte are
the pus. — It is astonishing how dreadfully these poor
animals in hot weather are terrified and injured by
them : ten of these flies will put a herd of five hundred
into the greatest agitation. They cannot stand still a
minute, no not a moment, without changing their pos-
ture, puffing and blowing, sneezing and snorting, stamp-
ing and tossing continually; every individual trem-
bling and pushing its neighbour about. The ovipositor
of this fly is similar to that of the ox-breese, consisting
of several tubular joints which slip into each other ; and
therefore Linne was probably mistaken in supposing
that it lays its eggs upon the skin of the animal, and that
the bot, when it appears, eats its way through it^: there
can be little doubt (or else what is the use of such an ap-
paratus ?) that it bores a hole in the skin and there de-
posits the eggs. About the beginning of July the rein-
deer sheds its hair, which then stands erect — at this time
the fly is alwaj^s fluttering about it, and takes its oppor-
tunity to oviposit. The bots remain under the skin

rum fauce, per nares iutrans ! " confounding probably CE. veterimis
of Mr. Clark with the true CE. nasafis.

* Lnc/i. Lapp. i. 280. ^ Flor. Lapp. 79.

iNi>nn-xi' iN.ii ini:s tAUsKo )\v insects. 161

ihroiioli the whole winter, and, frrow to the size of an
aeoin. Six or eight of these are often to be ibuiid in a
single rein-deer that has only seen one winter; and these
so emaciate them, that frequently one third of theirnuni-
ber perish in consequence. Even those that are full
grown suffer greatly from this insect. The fly follows
the animals over })recij)ices, valleys, the snow-covered
mountains, and even the highest alps ; to which in order
to avoid it they often fly with great swiftness in a dii'ec-
tion contrary to the wind. By this constant agitation
and endeavour to escape from the attack of their enemy
they are kept from eating during the day, standing al-
ways upon the watch, with erect ears and attentive eyes,
that they may observe whether it comes near them^.
The rein-deer are teased also by a peculiar species of
Tabanus (7'. tarandinus, L.) which, by a singular in-
stinct, instead of their skin, makes its incision in their
horns when tender.

Our dogs, the faithful guardians of our other domestic
animals and possessions, the attached companions of our
walks, and instruments of many of our pleiisures and
amusements, cannot defend themselves from insect an-
noyance. They have their peculiar louse, and the flea
sucks their blood in common with that of their master :
you must also often have noticed how much they suffer
from the dog-tick, which, when once it has fixed itself
in their flesh, will in a short time, from the size of a })in's
head, so swell itself out by gorging their blood, that it
will equal in dimensions what is called the tick-bean. In
the West Indies these ticks, or one like them, get into
the ears and head of the dogs, and so annoy them and
» Linn. Flor. Lapp. 379.

VOL. I. M

162 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

wear them out that they either die or are obliged to be
killed =».

Some of the most esteemed dainties of our tables are
supplied from such of the winged part of the creation as
we have domesticated. These also have a louse [Nir-
7nus, Herm.) appropriated to them, and the gorgeous pea-
cock is infested by one of extraordinary dimensions and
singular form''. Pigeons, in addition, often swarm with
the bed-bug, which makes it advisable never to have
their lockers fixed to a dwelling-house. In their young,
if your curiosity urges you to examine them, you may
find the larva of the flea, which in its perfect state often
swarms in poultr3%

Amongst our most valuable domestic animals I shall
be very unjust and ungrateful, if I do not enumerate
those industrious little creatures the bees, from whose
incessant labours and heaven-taught art we derive the
two precious productions of honey and wax. They also
are infested by numerous insect-enemies, some of which
attack the bees themselves, while others despoil them of
their treasures. — They have parasites of a peculiar ge-
nus, although at present regarded as belonging to Pedi-
culus*^, and mites [Acarus g_i/m?ioj)terornm, L.) are fre-

'^ Mr. Kittoe. *' Plate V. Fig. 3.

''Meliitophagus, Miis. Kirb}'. See Mon. Ap. Angl. ii. 168. I copy
the following memorandum respecting M. Alelitta; from my common-
place-book. May 7, 1812. On the flowers of Ficcaria, Taraxacum
and Bellis, I found a great number of this insect, which seemed ex-
tremely restless, running here and there over the flowers, and over
each other, with great swiftness moimting the anthers, and sometimes
lifting themselves up above them, as if looking for something. One
or two of them leaped upon my hand. Near one of these flowers I
found a small Melitta, upon which some of these creatures were busy
sucking the j)oor animal, so that it seemed unable to fly away. When

INDlRKOr INJUlUF.S t Al'Si;!) V.\ IN'SF.Cl'S. lC>tl

qiientlv injurious to them. That universal plunderer
the wasp, antl his ronnidablo coniijener the hornet, often
seize and devour them, sometimes ripping open their body
to come at the honey, aiul at others carryiuf^ off that
part in wjiich it is situated. The ibi-mer IVeijuently take
possession of a hive, liaving either destroyed or driven
away its inhabitants, and consume all the honey it con-
tains. Nay there are certain idlers ol' their own species,
called by apiarists corsair-bees, which plunder the hives
of" the industrious. — From the curious account which
Latrellle has given us of Philanthus ajnvorus, a wasp-like
insect, it appears that great havoc is made by it of the
unsuspecting workers, which it seizes while intent upon
their daily labours, and carries off' to feed its young*.
Another insect, which one would not have suspected of
marauding propensities, must here be introduced. Kuhn
informs us, that long ago (in 1799) some monks who
kept bees, observing that they made an unusual noise,
lifted up the hive, when an animal flew out, which to
their great surprise no doubt, for they at first took it for
a bat, proved to be the death's-head hawk-moth [Sphinx
Atropos^ L.), already celebrated as the innocent cause
of alarm '^; and he remembers that several, some years
before, had been found dead in the bee-houses '^. M. Hu-
ber, also, in 1804? discovered that it had made its way
into his hives and those of his vicinity, and had rob-
bed them of their honey. In Africa we are told it has
the same propensity ; which the Hottentots observing,

disclosed from the egg, I imagine they get on the top of these flowers
to attach themselves to any Melitta that may alight on them, or
come sufficiently near for them to leap on it. K.

» Latreille, ///*/. rfei /^ow/w/.v, 307-20. '■ Seeabovej p. 34.

•■ Xftliirfofsc/icr !>tk. wi. 74.

M 2

I64f INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

in order to monopolize the honey of the wild bees, have
persuaded the colonists that it inflicts a mortal wound*.
This moth has the faculty of emitting a remarkable
sound, which he supposes may produce an effect upon
the bees of a hive somewhat similar to that caused by
the voice of their queen, which as soon as uttered strikes
them motionless, and thus it may be enabled to commit
with impunity such devastation in the midst of myriads
of armed bands ^. The larvae of three species of moth
{Tortrix Ce7-ea?ia, F., Tinea Mellonclla^ F., and Tinea
sociella, F.) exhibit equal hardihood with equal impunity.
They indeed pass the whole of their initiatory state in
the midst of the combs. Yet in spite of the stings of the
bees of a whole republic, they continue their depreda-
tions unmolested, sheltering themselves in tubes made
of grains of wax, and lined with silken tapestry, spiui
and wove by themselves, which the bees (however dis-
posed they may be to revenge the mischief which they
do them, by devouring, what to all other animals would
be indigestible, their wax,) are unable to penetrate.
These larvae are sometimes so numerous in a hive, and
commit such extensive ravages, as to force the poor bees
to desert it and seek another habitation.

I shall not delay you longer upon this subject by de-
tailing what ivild animals suffer from insects, further tlian
by observing that the two creatures of this description
in which we are rather interested, the haj-e and the rab-
bity do not escape their attack. The hare in Lapland is
more tormented by the gnats than any other quadruped.

* Quoted from Campbell's Travels in South Africa, in the Qiuir-
terly Review for July 181"). 31").
'' Huber. Pref. xi-xiii.

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 165

To avoid this pest it is obliged to leave the cover of the
woods in full day, and seek the plains : hence the hun-
ters say, that of three litters which a hare produces
in a year, the first dies by the cold, the second by gnats,
and only the third escapes and comes to maturity^. — We
learn from the ingenious Mr. Clark, that the American
rabbit and hare are infested by the largest species of
CEstrus'' yet discovered; and our domestic rabbits some-
times swarm with the bed-bug. This was the case with
some kept by two young gentlemen at my house last
summer to such a tlegree, that I found it necessary to
have them killed.

Nor are the inhabitants of the "doaters sheltered by their
peculiar element fi'om these universal assailants. The
larvae of D}1;isci fixing themselves by their suctorious
mandibles to the body ofjish, doubtless destroy an infi-
nite number of the young fry of our ponds. Some spe-
cies of salmon {Salnio Fario, L.) are the food of an ani-
mal which Linne has arranged under Pediculus ; and
probably many others of the finny tribes may, like the
birds, have their peculiar parasites. Even shell-fish do
not escape, for the Nymphon grossipes, Latr. enters the
shell of the muscle and devours its inhabitant.

I am, &c.

» De Geer, ii. 83.

^ Considered by Mr. Clark as a new genus, which he has named
Cuierebra, and of which he has described three species. Estay on
tJte Bots of Horses, Sfc. p. 63. t. 2./. 24-29.

LETTER VI.

INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

INDIRECT INJURIES CONTINUED.

Having endeavoured to give you some ideaof the mode
in which insects establish and maintain their empire over
man and his train of dependent animals, I shall next call
your attention to his livirig vegetable possessions, whether
the produce of the forest, the field, or the garden; whether
necessary to him for his support, convenient for his use,
or ministering to his comfort, pleasure and delight : —
and here you will find these little creatures as busily en-
gaged in the work of miscluef as ever, destroying what
is necessary, deranging what is convenient, marring what
is beautiful, and turning what should give us pleasure into
an object of disgust.

Let us begin with the produce of our^elds. — Bread is
called " the staff of life: " yet should divine Providence in
anger be pleased to give the rein to the various insects
which, in the different stages of its growth, attack the
plant producing it, how quickly would this staff be bro-
ken ! From the moment that wheat begins to emerge from
the soil, to the time when it is carried into the barn, it is
exposed to their ravages. One of its earliest assailants in
tliis country is that of which Mr. Walford has given an

INDIRECT INJ I lULS CAUSED BY INSECTS. 167

account in the Linncan Transactions, taking it tor the
wire-worm; but, as Mr. Marsham observed, not correctly;
it being probably the larva of some coleopterous insect,
perhaps of one of the numerous tribe of StaphyUnidce
which are not universally carnivorous. This ajiimal was
discovered to infest the wheat in its earliest stage of growth
after vegetation had commenced; and there was reason
to believe that it began even with the grain itself. It eats
into the young plant about an inch below the surfiice, de-
vouring the central part; antl thus, vegetation being stop-
ped, it dies. Out of fifty acres sown with this grain in 1 cS02,
ten had been destroyed by the grub in question so early
as October*. — Other predaceous Coleoptcra will also at-
tack young corn. This is done by the larva of Carabus
gibbus, F. (C. gibbosus, E. B., Harpalm, Latr.), particu-
larly with respect to wheat. In the spring of 1813 not
less than twelve German hides (Hii/'cn), ecjual to two hun-
dred and thirty English acres, were destroyed by it in the
canton of Seeburg, near Halle in Germany; and Germar
(who with other members of the Society of Natural His-
tory, at that place, ascertained the fact,) suspects that it
was the same insect, described by Cooti, an Italian author,
which caused great destruction in Upper Italy in 1776. —
Not only is the larva, which probably lives in that state
three years, thus injurious; but, what one would not have
expected, the perfect beetle itself attacks the grain when
in the ear, clambering up the stems at night in vast num-
bers to get at it. — Along with the larva? of this insect were
found, in the proportion of about one-fourth, those of
another beetle {Melolontlia yuficorni<^, F.), which seemed
to contribute to die mischief''.

■' Linn. Trans, ix, 15()-G1. '' (.tcrmiir's J/r?;'. dcr Ent. i. 1-10.

168 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED JBV INSECTS.

Mr. Markwick has given us the history of a fly that at-
tacks wheat in alater period of its growth, which, if it be not
indeed the same, appears to be nearly related to the Musca
Pumilionis of Bierkander % accused by him of being ex-
tremely injurious to rye in the spring. Our insect was
discovered on the first sown wheats early in that season,
making its lodgement in the very heart of the principal
stem just above the root, which stem it invariably destroy-
ed, giving the crop at first a most unpromising appear-
ance, so that there seemed scarcely a hope of any produce.
But it proved in this and other instances that year (1791)
that the plant, instead of being injured, derived great be-
nefit from this circunistance ; for, the mahi stem perish-
ing, the root (which was not hurt) threw out fresh shoots
on every side, so ^s to yield a more abundant crop than
in other fields where the insect had not been busy. These
flies therefore seem to belong to our insect benefactors;
and I should not have introduced them here, had it not
been probable that in some instances later in the spring
they may attack the lateral shoots of the wheat, and so be
injurious. It is also not luilikely that the new progeny,
which is disclosed in May, may oviposit in barley or some
other spring corn, which would bring the next generation
out in time for the wheat sown in the autumn. — These
flies are amongst the last, and, in some seasons, the most
numerous, that take shelter in the windows of our apart-
ments when the first frosts indicate the approach of winter,
previous to their becoming torpid during that season.
When this little animal was first observed in England, it

* Act. Stochh, 1778. 3. n. 11. and 4. n. 4, Marsham in Linn. Trans.
ii. 79. This insect probably belongs to Latreille's genus Moaillus, and
seei^is rehiteil to Mosillus arcualiis, Gen, Crust. S[ Ins. iv. 357.

INDIUECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 169

created no small alarm amongst ap;riciilturi.sts lest it should
prove to be the IIt\ssianJ/j/, so notorious lor its dei)redii-
tions in North America; but Mr. Marshiim, by tracing
out the species, proved the alarm to be unfounded*. That
there was suflicient cause lor apprehension, should it have
so turned out, w hat I have formerly stated concerning the
latter insect, and the additional facts which I shall now
adduce, will amply show.

Tile ravages of the animal just alluded to, which was
first noticed in 1776, and received its name from an er-
roneous idea that it was carried by the Hessian troops in
their straw jVom Germany, were at one time so universal
as to threaten, where it appeared, the total abolition of
the culture of wheat; though, by recent accounts, the in-
jury which it now occasions is much less than at first. It
commences its depredations in autumn, as soon as the
plant begins to appear above ground, when it devours
the leaf and stem with etjual voracity until stopped by
the frost. When the return of spring brings a milder
temperature the fly appears again, and deposits its eggs
in the heart of the main stems, which it perforates and
so weakens, that when the ear begins to grow heavy, and
is about to go into the milky state, they break do^\^l and
perish. All tlie crops, as far as it extended its flight, fell
before this ravager. It first sliowed itself in Long Island,
from whence it proceeded inland at about the rate of fif^
teen or twenty miles annually, and by the year 1 789 had
reached 200 miles from its original station. I must ob-
serve, however, that some accounts state its progress at
first to have been very slow, at the rate only of seven
miles per annum, and the damage inconsiderable ; and
' J/inn. Trans, ii. 76-80,

170 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS,

that the wheat crops were not materially injured by it
before the year 1 788. Though these insect hordes tra-
verse such a tract of country in the course of the year,
their flights are not more than five or six feet at a time.
Nothing intercepts them in their destructive career, nei-
ther mountains nor the broadest rivers. They were seen
to cross the Delaware like a cloud. The numbers of this
fly were so great, that in wheat-harvest the houses swarm-
ed with them to the extreme annoyance of the inhabitants.
They filled every plate or vessel that was in use ; and
five himdred were counted rn a single glass tumbler ex-
posed to them a few minutes with a little beer in it*.

America suffers also in its wheat and maize from the
attack of an insect of a different order; which, for what
reason I know not, is called the chintz-bug-fly. It ap-
pears to be apterous, and is said in scent and colom- to re-
semble the bed-bug. They travel in immense columns from
field to field, like locusts destroying every thing as they
proceed ; but their injuries are confined to the states south
of the 40th degree of north latitude ^. From this account
tlie depredator here noticed should belong to the tribe of
Cimicidce ; but it seems very difficult to conceive how an
insect that lives by suction, and has no mandibles, could
destroy these plants so totally.

When the wheat blossoms, another marauder, to whicli
Mr. Marsham first called the attention of the public, takes
its turn to make an attack upon it, under the form of an
orange-coloured gnat, whicli, introducing its long retrac-
tile ovipositor into the centre of the corolla, there deposits
its eggs. These being hatched, the larvae, perhaps bj'

^ Enci/clojiccd. Brilann. viii. 489-90.

*" Young's AnnaU nf Agiictdlurr, xi, 4/1.

INDIUIXI' IKJUHIES ( AISED IJY JNSKCrs. 171

eating llic polkii, prcvciil. tlic inij)rcgn;itic)n ol the grain,
and so in some seasons destroy tlie twentieth part ol' tlic
crop^.

One would think, when laid up in tlie barn or in the
granary, that wheat would be secure from injury ; but
even tliere the weevil {Calandra granaria^ ¥.), in its imago
as well as in its larva state, devours it ; and sometimes this
pest becomes so infinitely numerous, that a sensible man,
engaged in the brewing trade, once told me, speaking per-
haps rather hji^erbolically, that they collected and destroy-
ed them by bushels ; and no wonder, for a single pair of
these destroyers may produce in one year above 6000 de-
scendants.— There are three other insects that attack the
stored wheat, which are more injurious to it than even the
weevil. One is a minute species of moth, ( Tinea grandla,
F.,) happily not much if at all known in this country; of
which Leeuwenhoek has given us a full history under the
name of the wolf. Another is a species of the same genus,
at present not named, which, as we are informed bj' Du
Hamel, at one time committed dreadful ravages in the
province of Angoumois in France. The third is Trogosita
caraboides, F., a kind of beetle, the grub of whicli called
Caddie^ Olivier tells us, did more damage to the housed
grain in the southern provinces of France than either the
weevil or the wolf''. — Here I may just mention a few
other insects which devour grains that are the food of man,
concernhig which I have collected no other facts. Tlic
rice-weevil [Calandra Oryzcc, F.) is very injurious to the
useful grain after which it is named, as is likewise another

" Tipuhi Trilici, K., belonging to Latrcille's genus Ccru/owj/zff. xMar-
^hanl and Kirby in Linn. Tram, iii, 342-5. iv. 335-39. v. 90-1 10.
^ Oliv, ii. n. H». 3-4.

172 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

small beetle, Lyctus denlatus, F. ; and an Indian grain,
called in the country Jo/ia77t', wliich appears to be a species
of Holcus or Milium, is the appropriate food of another
species of Calandra*, which I found abundant in it.

Ili/e, in this island, is an article of less importance than
wheat; but in some parts of the continent it forms a prin-
cipal portion of the bread-corn. Providence has also ap-
pointed the insect means of causing a scarcity of this spe-
cies of food. Tlie fly before noticed [Musca Pumilionis)
introduces its eggs into the heart of the shoots of rye, and
occasions so many to perish, that from eight to fourteen
are lost in a square of two feet. — A small moth si\so(Pi/ralis
Secalis, F.^ which eats the culm of this plant within the
vagina, thus destroys many ears ^. In common with wheat
and barley it also suffers from Leeuwenhoek's wolf and
the weevil.

Barley likewise, another of our most valuable grains,
has several insect foes. The gelatinous larva of a saw-fly
( Tenthredo^ L.) preys upon the upper surface of the leaves,
and so occasions them to wither. Musca Mordei of Bier-
kander also assails the plant. A tenth part of the produce
of this grain, Linne affirms, is annually destroyed in Swe-
den by another fly, not yet discovered in Britain, {Musca
Frit, L.,) which does the mischief by getting into the ear.
— A small species of moth described by Reaumur, though
not named by Linne, which may be called Tinea Hordeiy
devours the grain wlien laid up in the granary. This fly
deposits several eggs, perhaps twenty or thirty, on a sin-

^ Carculio iesiaccus^ Ent. Brit.

^ Marsliam in Linn. Tram. ii. 80. De Geer notices (he injury done
by this fly to rye, and observes that hclbre it had been attributed to
irost. ii. 68.

INDIRECT iX.TUniKS CAl'SF.D BY INSECTS. 173

gle grain: but as one grisin only is to be llie portion ot" one
larva, tliey disperse when hatched, each selecting one for
itself^ which it enters I'roni without at a place more tender
than the rest: — and tins sin<)'le m-ain furnishes a sufficient
supply of food to support the caterpillar till it is read}' to
assume the pupa. Concealed within this contracted ha-
bitation, the little animal does nothing that may betray it
to the watchful eye of man, not even ejecting its excre-
ments from its habitation; so that there may be millions
within a heap of corn, where you would not suspect there
was one^.

I have not observed that oafs suffer from insects, except
from the universal subterranean destroyer of t^je grasses,
the wire-worm, of which I shall give you a more full ac-
count hereafter; and occasionally from an Aphis. The only
important grain that now remains unnoticed is the maize or
Indian corn. Besides the chintz-bug-fly, a little beetle^
{Phaleria cornuta, Latr.) appears to devour it; and it has
probably other unrecorded enemies. The Guinea corn
of America (/fo/a« bicolor), as well as other kinds of grain,
is, according to Abbott, often much injured by the larva of
a moth {Noctuafrugiperda, Smith), which feeds upon the
main shoot ■=.

Next to grain pulse is useful to us both when cultivated
in our gardens and in our fields. Peas and beans, whicli
form so material a part of the produce of the farm, are ex-
posed to the attack of a numerous host of insect depre-
dators ; indeed the fomer, on account of their ravages, is
one of the most uncertain of our crops. The animals

•* Act. Stockh. 1750, 128. Reaiimnr. ii. 480, &c.

^ This insect was taken in maize by Mr. Sparsliall of Norwich.

'Smith's Al)liott's I nsccU of Georgia, 191.

174. INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

from which in this coiinti'y both these plants suffer most
are the Aphides, commonly called leaf-lice, but which pro-
perly should be denominated plant-lice. — As almost every
animal has its peculiar louse, so has almost every plant its
peculiar plant-loKse ,• and, next to locusts, these are the
greatest enemies of the vegetable world, and like them are
sometimes so numerous as to darken the air^. The mul-
tiplication of these little creatures is infinite and almost
incredible. Providence has endued them with privileges
promoting fecundity, which no other insects possess : at
one time of the year they are viviparous, at another ovipa-
rous; and, what is most remarkable and without parallel,
the sexual intercourse of one original pair serves for all
the generations which proceed from the female for a whole
succeeding year. Reaumur has proved tliat in five gene-
rations one Aphis may be the progenitor of 5,904,900,000
descendants; and it is supposed that in one year there
may be twenty generations''. This astonishing fecundity
exceeds that of any known animal ; and we cannot wonder
that a creature so prolific should be proportionably inju-
rious : some species, however, seem more so than others.
Those that attack wheat, oats, and barley, of which there
are more kinds than one, seldom multiply so fast as to be
very noxious to those plants ; while those which attack
pulse spread so rapidly, and take such entire possession,
that the crop is greatly injured, and sometimes destroyed
by them. This was the case with respect to peas in the
year 1810, when the produce was not much more than the

* I say this upon the authority of Mr. Wolnough of Hollesley (late
of Boyton) in Suffolk, an intelligent agriculturist, and a most acute
and accurate observer of nature.

^ Reaum. vi. 560,

IS'DIRF.CT IXJURIFS ( AT'SF.D BV INSF.lTS. 17.^

Sped sown; and many rarnioi's tiniu'd their swine inlo their
pea-lields, not thinkin<r them worth harvestinjr. Tlie da-
jnaifc in this inst«ince was caused solely by tiie Aphis, anil
was nniversal thoughout the kingdom, so that a sufficient
sii|)j)ly tor the navy could not be obtained. The earlier
peas are sown, the better chance they stand of escaping,
at least in part, the effects of this vegetable Phthiriasis.
— Beans are also often great sufferers from another spe-
cies of plant-louse, in some districts from its black colour
called the Collier^ which begins at the top of the plant,
and so keeps multiplying downwards. The best remedy
in this case, which also tends to set the beans well, and
improves both their quality and quantity, is to top them
as soon as the Aphides begin to appear, and carrying away
the tops to burn or bury them. — In a late stage of growtli
great havoc is often made in peas by the grub of a small
beetle, {Bruckus gra?ia)iuSi L.,) which will sometimes lay
an egg in every pea of a pod, and thus destroy it. — Some-
thing similar I have been told (I suspect it is a short-snout-
ed weevil ) occasionally inj ures beans. In this country, how-
ever, the mischief caused by the Bruchus is seldom very
serious; but in North America another species {B. Pisi, L.)
is most alarmingly destructive, its ravages being at one
time so universal as to put an end in some places to
the cultivation of that favourite pulse. No wonder then
that Kalm should have been thrown into such a trepida-
tion upon discovering some of these pestilent insects just
disclosed in a parcel of peas he had brought from that
country, lest he should be the instrument of introducing
so fatal an evil into his beloved Sweden '. In the year 1 780

■* Kalm's Travels, i. 173.

176 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS,

an alarm was spread in some parts of France, that people
had been poisoned by eating worm-eaten peas ; and they
were forbidden by authority to be exposed for sale in the
market: but the fears of the public were soon removed
by the examinatioii of some scientific men, who found
the cause of the injury to be the insect of which I am now
speaking^. Another species of Bruchus {B. pectinicomis,
L.) devours the peas in China and Barbary. A legumi-
nous seed, much used when boiled as food for horses in
India, known to Europeans by the name of Gram^ but in
the Tamul dialect called Koloo, and by the Moors Cooltee,
is the appropriate food of a fourth kind of Bruchus, re-
lated to the last, but having the antennae, which in the male
are pectinated, much shorter than the body. It is, per-
haps, B. scutellaris, F. A parcel of this seed'' given me
by Captain Green was full of this insect, several grains con-
taining two. Molina, in his History of Chili, tells us of
a beetle, which he names Lucanus Pibmis, that infests the
beans in that coimtry; — a circumstance quite at variance
with the habits of the Lucaiiidce, which all prey upon tim-
ber. This insect was probably a Phaleria, Latr., in which
genus the mandibles are protruded from the head like
those of Lucanus; and one species, as we have seen above,
feeds upon maize.

Great profits are sometimes derived by farmers from
their crops o^ clover-seed : but this does not happen very
often; for a small weevil, [Apion Jlavifemoratum,) which
abounds every where at almost all times of the year, feeds
upon the seed of the purple clover, and in most seasons

» Amoreux, 288.

*• I have raised plants from this seed, which appear from the foliage
to belong either to Phascolus or DoHcJws,

lM)ini:{| IN.M KIKs lAlStD liV INsMcrs. 177

lioes the crop considerable clai.mov: so thai a plant or the
lairest appearance uilj. i,, consequence oftlie voracity of
this h'ttle enen.y, produce scarcely any thing. Another
species {Apionjlaviprs) infe.ts the Dutdi or white c!over\
The young plants ol' purple clover, when just sprung, are
often, as Mr. Joseph .Sticknoy pointed out to me, much
injured by the same little jumping beetles {Ualiica, F.)
that attack the turniixs.

But not only, iflet loose to the work of destruction,
might insects annihilate our grain and pulse; ihev would
also deprive the earth ofthat beautiful green carpet which
now covers it, and is so agreeable and so refreshing to the
MghL When you see a large tract of land King fallow,
as IS sometimes the case i.i open districts, wiih no inter-
vening patches of verdure, how unpleasant and uncom-
fortable is It to your eye! What then would be vour sen-
sations, were the whole face of the earth bare,' and not
dressed by Flora? But such a state of things would soon
take place, if to punish us, or to teach iis thankfulness to
the great Arbiter of our fate, the insects that feed upon
X\\e grass of our pastures were to become as generally nu-
merous as they are occasionally permitted to do. On.e of
the worst of these ravagers is the grub of the common
cockchafer {MeJolonlha vulgans, F.)" This insect, which
IS found to remain in the larva state four years, sometimes
destroys whole acres of grass, as I can aver from my own
obsen-ation. It undermines the richest meadows, and so
loosens the turf that it will roll up as if cut with a turfing-
spade. These grubs did so much injury about seventy

» MarkH-ick. Ma.sl)ain and I eha^aim in Linn. Trans, vi. l-iS.-
and Kjrby m ditto, ix. ."j;. 4i>. n. ly f/;-j
" Pi.A TK XVII. Fjg. 12.

VOL. I.

178 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

years ago to a poor farmer near Norwich, that the court
of that city, out of compassion, allowed him 251., and the
man and his servant declared that he had gathered eighty
bushels of the beetle^. In the year 1785 many provinces
of France were so ravaged by them, that a premium was
offered by the government for the best mode of destroying
them. They do not confine themselves to grass, but eat
also the roots of corn; and it is to feast upon this grub
more particularly that the rooks follow the plough.

The larva also of another species of this genus {Melo-
lo7itha pulverule7ita, F.) is extremely destructive in moist
meadows, rooting under the herbage, so that, the soil be-
coming loose, the grass soon withers and dies. Swine are
very fond of these grubs, and will devour vast numbers
of them, and the rooks lend their assistance.

Amongst the Lepidoptera, the greatest enemy of our
pastures is the Bomhyx Gn'aminis, F., which, however, is
said not to touch the foxtail grass. In the years 1740,
1741, 1742, 1748, 1749, they multiplied so prodigiously
and committed such ravages in many provinces of Sweden,
that the meadows became quite white and dry as if a fire
liad passed over them''. This destructive insect, though
found in this country, is luckily scarce amongst us; but
our northern neighbours appear occasionally to have suf-
fered greatly from it. In 1759, and again in 1802, the
high sheep farms in Tweedale were dreadfully infested
by a caterpillar, which was probably the larva of this moth;
spots of a mile square were totally covered by them, and
the grass devoured to the roof^.

Most of the insects I have hitherto mentioned attack

» Ph'ilos. Tram. 1741. 581. •< De Geer,ii. 341. ■Uifen. Acad. iii. 355.

' Fanner^ s Mag. iii. 487.

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 179

our crops partially, confining themselves to one or two
kinds only; but there are some species which extend
tlieir ravages indifferently to all. Of this description is
the Phalcena J'nimcntaliSi L., which moth, Pallas tells
us, is an almost universal pest in the government of
Kasan in Russia, often eating the greater part of the
spring corn to the root^. To this we are fortunately
strangers; but another, well known by the name of the
wire-worm, causes annually a large diminution of the
produce of our fields, destroying indiscriminately wheat,
rye, oats, and grass ^\ This insect, which has its name
apparently from its slender form, and uncommon hard-
ness and toughness, is the grub of a beetle termed by
Linne Elatet' liyieatiis, but by Bierkander, to whom we
are indebted for its history, E. Segetis '^, which name is
now generally adopted. The ingenious Mr. Paul of
Starston in Norfolk, (well known as the inventor of a
machine to entrap the turnip-beetle, which may be ap-
plied by collectors with great advantage to general pur-
poses,) has also succeeded in tracing this insect from the
larva to the imago state. His grubs produced Elater
obsairiis of Mr. Marsham, which however comes so near
to E, Segetis that it is doubtful whether it be more than
a variety. The other species, however, of the genus have
similar grubs, many of which probably contribute to the
mischief. When told that it lives in its first (or feeding)
state not less than five years, during the greatest part of
which time it is supported by devouring the roots of grain,
you will not wonder that its ravages should be so exten-

» Pallas's Travek in South Russia, i. 30. ^ Plate XVIII. Fig. 4.
•= Marsham in Communications to the Board of Agriculture, iv. 412.
Plate \\\i\. Jig. 4. and Linn. Trans, ix. GO

N 2

180 INDIRECT IN'JURIKS CAUSED BV INSECTS.

sive, ami that whole crops should sometimes be cut oW
by it. As it abounds chiefly in newly broken-up land,
though the roots of the grasses supply it with food, it
probably does not do any great injury to our meadows
and pastures'.

Here also may be included the larva of the long-legged
gnat [Tipula oleracea, L.), known in many parts by the
name o^ the gnib, which is sometimes very .prejudicial to
the grass in marshy lands, and at others not less so to

* The wire-worm is particularly destructive for a few j'ears in gar-
dens recently converted from pasture ground. In the Botanic Garden
at Hull thus circumstanced a great proportion of the annuals sown in
1813 were destroyed by it. A very simple and effectual remedy in
such cases was mentioned to me by Sir Joseph Banks. He recom-
mended that slices of potato stuck upon skewers should be buried
near the seeds sown, examined every day, and the wire-worms which
collect upon them in great numbers destroyed.

This plan of decoying destructive animals from our crops by offer-
ing them more tempting food, is excellent, and deserves to be pursued
in other instances. It was very successfully employedin 1813byJ. M.
Rodwell, Esq. of Barham Hall near Ipswich, one of the most skilful
and best informed agriculturists in the county of Suffolk, to preserve
some of his wheat-fields from the ravages of a small gray slug, which
threatened to demolish the plant. Having heard that turnips had
been used with success to entice the slugs from vvheat, he caused a
sufficient quantity to dress eight acres to be got together ^ and then,
the tops being di\ided and the apples sliced, he directed the pieces to
be laid separately, dressing two stetches with them and omitting two
alternately, till the whole field of eight acres was gone over. On the
following morning he emploj'ed two women to examine and free from
the slugs, which they did into a measure, the tops and slices ; and
when cleared they were laid upon those stetches that had been omit-
ted the day before. It was observed invariably, that in the stetches
di'essed with the turnips no slugs were to be found upon the wheat or
crawling upon the land, though they abounded upon the turnips ;
while on the undressed stetches they were to be seen in great num-
bers both on the wheat and on the land. The quantity of slugs thus
collected was near a bushel. — Mr. Rodwell is persuaded that by this
plan he saved liis wheat from essential injury.

INDIREC'T IXJURIKS CAUSED BY INSECTS. 181

corn. Reaumur iatbrins us, that in Poitou, in certain
years, the grass of whole districts has been so destroyed
by it, as not to produce the food necessary lor the suste-
nance of the cattle '. In many })arts of England, in
Holderness particularly, it cuts off a large proportion of
the wheat crops, especially if sown upon clover-lays''.
Reaumur concludes from the observations he made that
it lives solely upon earth, and consequently that the injury
which it occasions, arises from its loosening the roots of
corn and grass by burrowing amongst them : but my
friend Mr. Stickney, the intelligent author of a treatise
upon this insect, is inclined to think from his experiments
that it feeds on the roots themselves. However this may
be, the evil produced is evident ; and it appears too from
the observations of the gentleman last mentioned, that
this animal is not killed by lime applied in much larger
doses than usual '■'.

Our national beverage ale, so valuable and heartening
to the lower orders, and so infinitely preferable to ardent
spirits and tea, is indebted to another vegetable, the hoj?^
for its agreeable conservative bitter. This plant so pre-
cious has numberless enemies in the Lilliputian world
to which I am introducing you. Its roots are subject to

* Reaum. v. 11,

^ Two species are confoumlecl under the appellation of the grub,
the larvae namely of Tipula olcracea and cornicina, which last is very
injurious, though not equally with the first. In the rich district of
Sunk Isldnd'm Holderness, in the spring of 1813, hundreds of acres
of pasture have been entirely destroyed by thcni, being rendered as
completely brown as if they had suffered a three months drought,
and destitute of all vegetation except that of a few thistles. A square
foot of the dead turf being dug up, i310 grubs were counted in it !
and, what furnishes a striking proof of the prolific power? of ihcse
insects, the next year it was difficult to find a single one.

'^ 'Siickney's Qbscrvafiom on the G> ttb.

182 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

the attack of the caterpillar of a singular species of moth
{Hepialus Humuli, F.), known to collectors by the name
of the ghost, that sometimes does them considerable in-
jury*.— A small beetle also [Haltica coTicinna) is parti-
cularly destructive to the tender shoots early in the year ;
and upon the presence or absence of Aphides, known
by the name of the^, as in the case of peas, the crop of
every year depends ; so that the hop-grower is wholly
at the mercy of insects. They are the barometer that
indicates the rise and fall of his wealth.

If the beer-drinker be thus interested in the history of
these animals, equally so is the drinker of tea. Indeed
sugar is an article so universally useful and agreeable,
that what concerns the cane that produces it seems to
concern every one. This also affords a tempting food
to insects. The caterpillar of a white moth, called the
borer, for destroying which a reward of fifty guineas is
offered by the Society of Arts, is in this respect a great
nuisance, as is an unknown species of horned beetle''.
An ant also [Formica analis, Latr.) makes a lodgement
in the interior of the sugar-cane in Guinea, and destroys
it. — But the creature of this class most destructive to
the sugar-cane, is one of the latter genus that does not
devour it, and is therefore improperly called Formica
saccharivora by Linne ; but, by making its nest for shel-
ter under the roots, so injures the plants that they be-
come unhealthy and unproductive. These insects about
seventy years ago appeared in such infinite hosts in the
island of Granada, as to put a stop to the cultivation of
this plant; and a reward of 20,000/. was offered to any

"" De Geer, i. 487.

^ I owe this information to Robinson Kittoe, Esq.

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 183

one who should discover an effectual mode of destroying
them. Their numbers were incredible. They descend-
ed from the hills like torrents, and the plantations, as
well as every path and road for miles, were filled with
them. Many domestic quadrupeds perished in conse-
quence of this plague. Rats, mice, and reptiles of every
kind became an easy prey to them ; and even the
birds, which they attacked whenever they alighted on
the ground in search of food, were so harassed as to be
at length unable to resist them. Streams of water op-
posed only a temporary obstacle to their progress, the
foremost rushing blindly on to certain death, and fresh
armies instantly following, till a bank was formed of the
carcases of those that were drowned sufficient to dam up
the waters, and allow the main body to pass over in
safety below. Even the all-devouring element of fire
was tried in vain. When lighted to arrest their route,
they rushed into the blaze in such myriads of millions as
to extinguish it. Those that thus patriotically devoted
themselves to certain death for the common good, were
but as the pioneers or advanced guard of a countless
army, which by their self-sacrifice was enabled to pass
unimpeded and unhurt. The entire crops of standing
canes were burnt down, and the earth dug up in every
part of the plantations. But vain was every attempt of
man to effect their destruction, till in 1780 it pleased
Providence at length to annihilate them by the torrents
of rain which accompanied a hurricane most fatal to the
other West India Islands. This dreadful pest was
thought to have been imported'. Besides these ene-

* Castle in Pliilos, Trans, xxx, 346.

184' INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

lilies, the sugar-cane has also its Aphis, which sometimes
destroys tlie whole crop * ; and according to Humboldt
and Bonpland the larva of Elater noct Uncus feeds in if*.

Tv/o other vegetable productions of the New World,
cotton and tobacco^ which are also valuable articles of
commerce, receive great injury from the depredations of
insects. M^Kinnen, in his Tour through the West In-
dies, states that in 1 788 and 1 794 two-thirds of the crop
of cotton in Crooked Island, one of the Bahamas, was
destroyed by the chenille (probably a lepidopterous lar-
va); and the red bi/g, an insect equally noxious, stained
it so much in some places as to render it of little or no
value. Browne relates that- in Jamaica a bug destroys
whole fields of this plant, and the caterpillar of the beau-
tiful Papilio Cupido, L. also feeds upon it*^. That of
the Sphinx Carolina^ L. is the great pest of Tobacco ;
and it is attacked likewise by the larva of Phalcena
RhexicE^ Smith ^, and by other insects of the names and
kind of which I am ignorant.

Roots are another important object of agriculture,
Avhich, however, as to many of them, they may seem to
be defended by the earth that covers them, do not es-
cape the attack of insect enemies. — The carrot, which
forms a valuable i)art of the crop of the sand-land farms
in Suffolk, is often very much injured, as is also the
parsnip, by a small centipede (S. electrica, L.), and an-
other polypod {Polydesmus complanatns^ Latr.), which
eat into various labyrinths the upper part of their roots;

' Browne's Civil mid Xat. Hist, of Jaituiica, 430.

^ Essai sur la GcogKip/iie c/es P/anfcs, loG.

'^ M'Kinnen, 171. BvoV' ne ubi siipr. Memn, Ins, Sur. 10.

'' Smith"? Abbott's Insrc/s nf (Jcor^irr, 199.

IKDIRECT INJURIES CALSKD BY INSECTS. 185

and they arc botli sometimes totally destroyed by the
maggot of some dipterous insect, probably a Musca, I
had an opportunity of noticing this in the month of July,
in the year 1812, in the garden of our valued friend the
Rev. Revett Sheppard of Oflflon in Suffolk. The plants
appeared many of them in a dying state; and upon
drawing them out of the ground to ascertain the cause,
these larvae were found with their head and half of their
body immersed in the root in an oblique direction, and
in many instances they had eaten off the end of it.

America has made us no present more extensively be-
neficial, compared with which the mines of Potosi are
worthless, than the potato. This invaluable root, which
is now so universally cultivated, is often, in this country,
considerably injured by the two insects first mentioned
as attacking the carrot. In America it is said to suffer
much from two beetles {Lytta cina-ea and viitata^ F.),
of the same genus with the blister-beetle^; and in the
island of Barbadoes some hemipterous insect, supposed
to be a Tettigonia, occasionally attacks them. In 1734?
and 1735 vast swarms of them devoured almost every
vegetable production of that island, particularly the po-
tato, and thus occasioned such a failure of tliis excellent
esculent, especially in one parish, that a collection was
made throughout the island for the relief of the poor,
whose principal food it forms.

The chief dependance of our farmers for the suste-
nance of their cattle in the winter is another most useful
root, the turnip. And they have often to lament the di-
stress occasioned by a failure in this crop, of which these
minor animals are the cause. On its first coming up, as

* Illiffcr, Mas, i. IbQ.

186 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

soon as the cotyledon leaves are unfolded, a whole host
of little jumping beetles, composed chiefiy of Haltica Ne-
morimii called by farmers the Jli/ and blackjack, attack
and devour them ; so that on account of their ravages
the land is often obliged to be resown, and frequently
with no better success. It has been calculated by an
eminent agriculturist, that from this cause alone the loss
sustained in the turnip crops in Devonshire in 1786 was
not less than 100,000/.* Almost as much damage is
sometimes occasioned by a little weevil (Curculio con~
tr actus, E. B.) which in the same manner pierces a hole
in the cuticle. When the plant is more advanced, and
out of danger from these pygmy foes, the black larva of
a saw-fly [Tenthredo, L.) takes their place, and occa-
sionally does no little mischief, whole districts being
sometimes nearly stripped by them ; so that in 1783 many
thousand acres were on this account ploughed up''. —
The caterpillar of the cabbage-butterfly [Papilio Bras-
sic(E, L.) is also sometimes found upon the turnip in
great numbers ; and Sir Joseph Banks informs me that
forty or fifty of the insects before mentioned *=, called by
Mr. Walford the wire-worm, have been discovered in
October just below the leaves in a single bulb of this
plant. — The small knob or tubercle often observable on
these roots is inhabited by a grub, which, from its re-
semblance to one found in similar knobs on the roots of
Sinapis arvensis, from which I have bred Curculio con-
tractus, E. B., and Itynchanus assimilis, F., is probably
one of the same or an allied species*^. This, however,

* Young's Aivials of Agriculture, vii. 1 02.

*• Marshall in Pkilos. Trans. Ixxiii. 178'j.

«: See above, p. 166-167.

'^ Swamm, ii. 81. col. b. — Gyllenhal in describing the last-named

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 18?

does not seem to affect their growth. Great mischief is
occasionally done to the young plants by the wire-worm.
I was shown a field last summer in which they had de-
stroyed one-fourth of the crop, and the gentleman who
showed them to me calculated that his loss by them
would be 100/. One year he sowed a field thrice with
turnips, which were twice wholly, and the third time in
great part, cut off by this insect. — Whether the disease
to which turnips are subject, in some parts of the
kingdom, from the form of the excrescences into which
the bulb shoots, caWed^/ingei's and toes, be occasioned by
insects, is not certainly known ^.

We have wandered long enough about the fields to
observe the progress of insect devastation ; let us now
return home to visit the domains of Flora and Pomona,
that we may see whether their subjects are exposed to
equal maltreatment. If we begin with the kitchen-gar-
den, we shall find that its various productions, minister-
ing so materially to our daily comfort and enjoyment,
almost all suffer more or less from the attack of the ani-
mals we are considering. — Thus, the earliest of our ta-
ble dainties, radishes, are devoured by the maggot of a
fly [Musca Radicum, L.), and our lettuces by the cater-
pillars of several species of moth ; one of which is the

species, so common on the flowers of siliquose plants {Imecta Sue.
cica, iii. 142.), asks if his R, sulcicollis {C, Pleurostigma,^. B.), which
agrees with it in most respects, except in having toothed thighs, be
not the other sex ? This query I can solve in the negative, having
taken the sexes of jR. assimilis in coitu, which do not differ, save that
the male has a somewhat shorter rostrum.

* Spence's Observations on the Disease in Turnips called Fingers
and^Toes. HuIllSlg. 8vo.

188 INDIUECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

beautiful tiger-motli {Bombyx Caja, F.), another the pot-
herb-moth [Noctua oleracea, F.), a third anonymous,
described by Reaumur as beginning at the root, eating
itself a mansion in the stem, and so destroying the plant
before it cabbages ^ And when they are come to their
perfection and appear fit for the table, their beauty and
delicacy are often marred by the troublesome earwig,
which, insinuating itself into them, defiles them with its
excrements. — What more acceptable vegetable in the
spring than brocoli ? Yet how dreadfully is its foliage
often ravaged in the autumn by numerous hordes of the
cabbage-butterfly ! so that, in an extensive garden, you
will sometimes see nothing left of the leaves except the
veins and stalks. — What more useful, again, than the
cabbage? Besides the same insect, which injures them
in a similar way, in some countries they are infested by
the caterpillar of a most destructive moth [Noctua Bras-
sicoe, F.), to which indeed I have before alluded '^ ; which,
not content with the leaves, penetrates into the very
heart of the plant *^. — One of the most delicate and ad-
mired of all table vegetables, concerning which gardeners
are most apt to pride themselves, and bestoM' much pains
to produce in perfection, I mean the cauliflower, is often
attacked by a fly, which ovipositing in that part of the
stalk covered by the earth, the maggots when hatched
occasion the plant to wither and die, or to produce a
worthless head'*. Even when the head is good and-
handsome, if not carefully examined previous to being

* Reaum. ii. 471. '' See above, p. 29. '■ De Geer, ii. 440.

^ Perhaps this fly is the same which Linne confounded with Mtisca
Larvarumy L., which he says he had found in the roots of the cab-
bage (S^sf, Xal. 993. 7§.)- ^ *^y ''confounded" because it is not

INDIltECr INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 189

cooked, it is often rendered disg'usting by earwigs that
have crept into it, or the green caterpillar of Papilio
Bapa, L.

Our peas, beans, carrots, parsnips, turnips, and pota-
tos are attacked in the garden by the same enemies that
injure them in the fields* ; I shall therefore dismiss them
without further notice, and point out those which infest
another of oiu' most esteemed kinds of pulse, kidney
beans. These are principally Aphides, which in dry
seasons are extremely injurious to them. The fluid
which they secrete, falling upon the leaves, causes them
to turn black as if sprinkled with soot ; and the nutri-
ment being subtracted from the pods by their constant
suction, they are prevented from coming to their proper
size or perfection. The beans also which they contain
are sometimes devoured by the caterpillar of a small
moth^. — Onions, which add a relish to the poor man's
crusts and cheese, and form so material an ingredient in
the most savory dishes of the rich, are also the favourite
food of the maggot of a fly, that often does considerable

likely that the same species should be parasitic in an insect, and also
inhabit a vegetable.

* In lately examining, however, some young garden peas and beans
about four inches high, I observed the margins of the leaves to be
gnawed into deep scollops by a little beetle {Curcidio lineahts, L.), of
which I found from two to eight on each pea and bean, and many in
the act of eating. Not only were the larger leaves of every plant
thus eroded, but in many cases the terminal young shoots and leaves
were apparently irreparably injiu-ed. I have often noticed this and
another of the short-snouted Curculios (C, tibialis, Herbst) in great
abundance in pea and bean fields, but was not aware till now that
either of them was injurious to these plants. Probably both are
so, but whether the crop is materially affected by them must be
left to further inquiry.

■^ Reaum. ii, 479.

190 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

damage to the crop. — From this maggot (for a supply of
onions containing which I have to thank my friend Mr.
Campbell, surgeon, of Hedon near Hull, where it is
very injurious, particularly in light soils,) I have suc-
ceeded in breeding the fly, which proves of that tribe of
the Linnean genus Musca, now called Scatophaga. Be-
ing apparently undescribed, and new to my valued cor-
respondent Count HofFmansegg to whom I sent it, I call
it & Ceparum^. — The diuretic Asparagus, towards the
close of the season, is sometimes rendered unpalatable
bv the numerous eggs of Lema Asparagi, ¥., and its
larvas feed upon the foliage after the heads branch out.
— Cucumbers with us enjoy an immunity from insect
assailants ; but in America they are deprived of this pri-
vilege, an unascertained species, called there the cucum-
ber-fly, doing them great injury''. — And, to name no
more, mushrooms, which are frequently cultivated and
much in request, often swarm with the maggots of various
Diptera and Coleoptera.

The insects just enumerated are partial in their at-
tacks, confining themselves to one or two kinds of our
pulse or other vegetables. But there are others that
devour more indiscriminately the produce of our gar-
dens ; and of these in certain seasons and countries we
have no greater and more universal enemy than the ca-
terpillar of a moth called by entomologists Noctua Gam-
mUy from its having a character inscribed in gold on its

* Description of S. Ceparum. — Cinereous, clothed with distant
black hairs, proceeding, particularly on the thorax, from a black point.
Legs nigrescent. Back of the abdomen of the male with an inter-
rupted black vitta down the middle. "Wings immaculate. Poisers
and alulfe pale yellow. Length 3^ lines.

'' Barton in Ph'ilos. Magaz. ix. 62.

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 191

priinary wings, which resembles that Greek letter. This
creature affords a pregnant instance of the power of
Providence to let loose an animal to the work of destruc-
tion and punishment. Though common with us, it is
seldom the cause of more than trivial injury; but in the
year 1735 it was so incredibly multiplied in France as
to infest the whole country. On the great roads, where-
ever you cast your eyes, you might see vast numbers tra-
versing them in all directions to pass from field to field ;
but theit ravages were particularly felt in the kitchen-
gardens, where they devoured every thing, whether pulse
or pot-herbs, so that nothing was left besides the stalks
and veins of the leaves. The credulous multitude thought
they were poisonous, report affirming that in some in-
stances the eating of them had been followed by fatal
effects. In consequence of this alarming idea, herbs
were banished for several weeks from the soups of Paris.
Fortunately these destroyers did not meddle with the
corn, or famine would have followed in their train.
Reaumur has proved that a single pair of these insects
might in one season produce 80,000 ; so that, were the
friendly Ichneumons removed, to which the mercy of
Heaven has given it in charge to keep their numbers
within due limits, we should no longer enjoy the comfort
of vegetables with our animal food, and probably soon
become the prey of scorbutic diseases*. — I must not
overlook that singular animal the mole-cricket, [Gryllo-
talpa vulgaris J Latr.) which is a terrible devastator of
the produce of the kitchen-garden. It burrows under
ground, and devouring the roots of plants thus occa-
sions them to wither, and even gets into hot-beds. It
* Reaum. ii, 337.

191 IXDIUFLT l.VJURIES CAISED BY IXSF.CTS.'

does so much niischiet in (lerniany, that the author
of an old book of gardening, after giving a figure of
it, excUiims, " Happy are the places where this pest is
unknown ! "

TheJlo-iSoers and s/irubs, that form the ornament of our
parterres and pleasure-grounds, seem less exposed to
insect depredation than the produce of the kitchen-gar-
den ; yet still there are not a few that suffer from it.
The foliage of one of our greatest favourites, the rose,
often loses all its loveliness and lustre from the excre-
ments of the Aphides that prey upon it. The leaf-cut-
ter bee also {Apis centunculan'Si L.), by cutting pieces out
to form for its young its cells of ciu'ious construction,
disfigures it considerably; and the froth Cicada (C spu-
mariay L.) aided by the saw-fly of the rose [Teiithreda
RosiT, L.) contributes to check the luxuriance of its
growth, and to diminish the splendour of its beauty. —
Reaumur has given the history of a fly [Eristalis Nar-
cissi) whose larva feeds in safety within the bulbs of the
Narcissus, and destroys them; and also of another,
though he neglects to describe the species, which tar-
nishes the gay parterre of the florist, whose delight is
to observe the freaks of nature exhibited in the various
many-coloured streaks which diversify the blossom of
the tulip, by devouring its bulbs*. — Ray notices another
mentioned by Swammerdam, probably Bibio horhilana^
Latr., which he calls the deadliest enemy of the flowers
of the spring. He accuses it of despoiling the gardens
and fields of every blossom, and so extinguishing the
hope of the j-ear''. But you must not take up a preju-
dice against an innocent creature, even tmder the war-
* Reaura. iv. 499. ^ Rai. Hist. Ins. Prolegpm. xi.

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 193

rant of such weighty authority ; for the insect which our
great naturaUst has arraigned as the author of such de-
vastation is scarcely guilty, if it be at all a culprit, in the
degree here alleged against it. As it is very numerous
early in the year, it may perhaps discolour the vernal
blossoms, but its mouth is furnished with no instrument
to enable it to devour them.

In our stoves and green-houses the Aphides often reign
triumphant ; for, if they be not discovered and destroyed
when their numbers are small, their increase becomes
so rapid and their attack so indiscriminate, that every
plant is covered and contaminated by them, beauty be-
ing converted into deformity, and objects before the most
attractive now exciting only nausea and disgust. The
Coccus (C Hesperidmn, L.) also, which looks like an
inanimate scale upon the bark, does considerable injury
to the two prime ornaments of our conservatories, the
orange and the myrtle ; drawing off the sap by its pec-
toral rostrum, and thus depriving the plant of a portion
of its nutriment, at the same time that it causes implea-
sant sensations in the beholder from its resemblance to
the pustule of some cutaneous disease.

I must next conduct you from the garden into the or-
chard and Jruitety ; and here you will find the same ene-
mies still more busy and successful in their attempts to
do us hurt. — The strawberry, which is the earliest and
at the same time most grateful of our fruits, enjoys also
the privilege of being almost exempt from insect injury.
A jumping weevil [Curculio Fr agar ice, F.) is said by Fa-
bricius to inhabit this plant ; but as the same species is
abundant in this country upon the beech, the beauty of
which it materially injures by the numberless holes with

VOL. I. o

194? INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

which it pierces the leaves, and has I believe never been
taken upon the strawberry, it seems probable that Smidt's
s]3ecimens might have fallen upon the latter from that
tree *. The only insect I have observed feeding upon
this fruit is the ant, and the injury that it does is not
material. — The raspberry, the fruit of which arrives later
at maturity, has more than one species of these animals
for its foes. Its foliage sometimes suffers much from
the attack of Meloloiitha horticola^ F., a little beetle re-
lated to the cockchafer : when in flower the footstalks of
the blossom are occasionally eaten through by a more
minute animal of the same order, Byturus tornentosus,
Latr., which I once saw prove fatal to a whole crop ; and
bees frequently anticipate us, and by sucking the fruit
with their proboscis spoil it for the table. — Gooseberries
and currants, those agreeable and useful fruits, a com-
mon object of cultivation both to poor and rich, have
their share of enemies in this class. The all-attacking
Aphides do not pass over them, and the former espe-
cially are sometimes greatly injured by them ; their ex-
crement falling upon the berries renders them clammy
and disgusting, and they soon turn quite black from it.
In July 1812 I saw a currant-bush miserably ravaged
by a species of Coccus, very much resembling the Coc-
cus of the vine. The eggs were of a beautiful pink, and
enveloped in a large mass of cotton-like web, which

* This kind of misnomer frequently occurs in entomological au-
thors.— Thus, for instance, the Curculio Alliarics of Linne feeds upon
the hawthorn, and Curculio Lapathiupon the willow (Curtis in Li7in.
Trans, i. 86.) ; but as Alliaria is common in hawthorn hedges, and
docks often grow under willows, the mistake in question easily hap-
pened : when, however, such mistakes are discovered, the Trivial
Name ought certainly to be altered.

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. lO.**

could be drawn out to a considerable length. Sir Jo-
seph Banks lately showed me a branch of the same
shrub perforated down to the pith by the caterpillar of
Sesia tipidiformis^ F. : the diminished size of the fruit
points out, he observes, where this enemy has been at
work. In Germany, where perhaps this insect is more
niunerous, it is said to destroy not seldom the larger
bushes of the red currant^. The foliage of these fruits
often suffers much from the black and white caterpillar
of Phalccna grossidariata, L. ; (this was the case last
spring at Hull;) but their worst and most destructive
enemy, particularly of the gooseberry, is that of a small
saw-fly. This larva is of a green colour, shagreened as
it were with minute black tubercles, which it loses at its
last moult. The fly attaches its eggs in rows to the un-
derside of the leaves. When first hatched, the little
animals feed in society ; but having consumed the leaf
on which they were born, they separate from each other,
and the work of devastation proceeds with such rapidity,
that frequently, where many families are produced on
the same bush, nothing of the leaves is left but the veins,
and all the fruit for that year is spoiled''.
' Upon the leaves of the cherry, which usually succeeds
the gooseberry, in common with those of the pear and
several other fruit-trees, the slimy larva of another saw-
fly (Tl Cera si, L.) makes its repast, yet without being

* Wiener Verzeicli. 8vo. 29.

'' Fabriciiis seems to have rcganlecl the saw-fly that feeds upon the
sallow {Tenthredo Caprece), not only as synonymous with that which
feeds upon the osier, but also with our little assailant of the goose-
berry and currant. Yet it is very evident from Reaunmr's account,
whose accuracy may be depended upon, that they are all distinct spe-
cies. Fabricius's description of thej?;/ agrees with the insect of the
gooseberry, but that which he has given of the larva belongs to the

o 2

196 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

the cause of any very material injury. But in North
America a second species nearly related to it, known
there by the name of the slug-worm^ has become preva-
lent to such a degree as to threaten the destruction not
only of the cherry, but also of the pear, quince, and
plum. In 1797 they were so numerous that the smaller
trees were covered by them ; and a breeze of air passing
through those on which they abounded became charged
with a very disagreeable and sickening odour. Twenty
or thirty were to be seen on a single leaf; and many
trees, being quite stripped, were obliged to put forth
fresh foliage, thus anticipating the supply of the succeed-
ing year and cutting off the prospect of fruit*. — In some
parts of Germany the cherry-tree has an enemy equally
injurious. A splendid beetle of the weevil tribe {Ryn-
chites Bacchus^ Herbst,) bores with its rostrum through
the half-grown fruit into the soft stone, and there deposits
an eg(f. The grub produced from it feeds upon the kernel,
and, when about to become a pupa, gnaws its way tlirough
the cherry, and sometimes not one in a thousand escapes''.
This insect is fortunately rare with us, and has usually
been found upon the black-thorn. The cherry-fly also
( Tephrites Cei-asi, Latr.) provides a habitation for its mag-
got in the same fruit, which it invariably spoils ^.

animal inhabiting the sallow. Probably, conrouncling the two species,
he described the imago from the insect of the former, and the larva
(if he did not copy from Reaumur or Linne) from that of the latter.
Linne was correct in regarding Reaumur's three insects as distinct
species, though he appears to be mistaken in referring to him under
T.jlava, as the saw-fly of the currant and gooseberry is not wholly
yellow.

'■ Peck's Nat. Hist, of the Slug-worm, 9.

'' Trost Kleiner Betjlrag. 38. = Reaum. ii. , 477.

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 197

The different varieties of the plum are every year
more or less injured by Aphides ; and a Coccus (C. Per-
sicce, F.?) sometimes so abounds upon them that every
twig is thickly beaded with the red semiglobose bodies
of the gravid females, whose progeny in spring exhaust
the trees by pumping out the sap.

The blossoms of our pear-trees, as we learn from Mr.
Knight, are often rendered abortive by the grub of a
brown beetle : and a considerable quantity of its fruit is
destroyed by that of a small four-winged fly, which oc-
casions it to drop off prematurely*. This would seem
to be a saw-fly, and is probably the species which Reau-
mur saw enter the blossom of a pear before it was quite
open, doubtless to deposit its eggs in the embryo fruit.
He often found in young pears, on opening them, a larva
of this genus '^. — A little moth likewise is mentioned by
Mr. Forsyth as very injurious to this tree^.

But of all our fruits none is so useful and important
as the apple, and none suffers more from insects, which
according to Mr. Knight '' are a more frequent cause of
the crops failing than fi-ost. The figure-of-eight moth
{Bombyx cceruleocephala, F.) Linnd denominates the pest
pf Pomona and the destroyer of tlije blossoms of the apple,

.* On the Apple and Pear, 158. The beetle Mr. Knight alkides to
is probably the CurcuUo oblongus, L,, which answers his description,
and is common on pear-trees. — In Holland, it is stated in a little
tract on this subject ( Verhandeling ten bewijze c^c. door F. H. van
Berck. 8vo. Haarlem 1807) that the great destroyer of the blossoms
of their apple- and pear-trees is the larva of another beetle, CurcuUo
Pomorum, L., which from the name and Gyllenhal's addition to the
•habitat given by Linne — " quas destruit" — should seem to be inju^
rioxis in Sweden also.

^ Reaura. ubi siipr. 475. <= On Fruit Trees, 271,

^ On the Apple and Pear, 45.

198 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

pear, and cherry. — He also mentions another {Tinea
Corticella, F.) as inhabiting apple-bearing trees under
the bark. — And Reaumur has given us the history of a
species common in this country, and producing the same
effect, often to the destruction of the crop, the caterpillar
of which feeds in the centre of our apples, thus occa-
sioning them to fall^. Even the young grafts, I am in-
formed by an intelligent friend'', are frequently destroy-
ed, sometmies many hundreds in one night, in the nur-
series about London, by Curculio Vastator, Marsh., (C
jncipes, F.) one of the short-snouted weevils ; and the
foundation of canker in full-grown trees is often laid by
the larvae of Toririx Wcchcrana^. The sap too is often
injuriously drawn off" by a minute Coccus, of which the
female has the exact shape of a muscle-shell (C. arborum
I'mcaris, GeofFr.), and which Reaumur has accurately
described and figured^. This species so abounded in
1816 on an apple-tree in my garden that the whole bark
was covered with it in every part ; and I have since been
informed by Joshua Haworth, jun. Esq. of Hull, that it
equally infests other trees in the neighbourhood. Even
the fruit of a golden pippin which he sent me were thickly
beset with it. — But the greatest enemy of this tree, and
which has been known in this country only since the
year 1787, is the apple-aphis, called by some the Coccus,
and by others the American blight. This is a minute in-
sect, covered with a long cotton-like wool transpiring
from the pores of its body, which takes its station in the

^ Rcaum. ii. 499. ^ Mr. Scales.

'■ Sec Observations on this Insect in the 2il volume of the Hvrti-
caUural Suciclt/'s Tiamarlioiis, p, 25, By W. Sptnce.
•^ Reuiun. i'v. 60, /. b.J\ 6, 7.

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 1.99

chinks and rugosities of the bark, where it increases
abundantly, and by constantly drawing off the sap causes
ultimately the destruction of the tree. Whence this
pest was first introduced is not certainly known. Sir
Joseph Banks traced its origin to a nursery in Sloane
Street ; and at first he was led to conclude that it had
been imported with some apple-trees from France. On
writing, however, to gardeners in that country, he found
it to be wholly unknown there. It was therefore, if not
a native insect, most probably derived from North Ame-
rica, from whence apple-trees had also been imported by
the proprietor of that nursery. Whatever its origin, it
spread rapidly. At first it was confined to the vicinity
of the metropolis, where it destroyed thousands of trees.
But it has now found its way into other parts of the king-
dom, particularly into the cyder counties; and in 1810
so many perished from it in Gloucestershire, that, if
some mode of destroying it were not discovered, it was
feared the making of cyder must be abandoned. This
valuable discovery, it is said, has since been made ; the
application of the spirit of tar to the bark being recom-
mended as effectual^. Sir Joseph Banks long ago ex-
tirpated it from his own apple-trees, by the simple me-
thod of taking off all the rugged and dead old bark, and
then scrubbing the trunk and branches with a hard
brush.

^ This Aphis is evidently the insect described in IJb'ger's Magazin,
I. 450. under the name of A. lanigera, as having done great injury to
the apple-trees in the neighbourhood of Bremen in 1801. That it is
an Aphis and no Coccus is clear from its oral rostrum and the wings
of the male, of which Sir Joseph Banks possesses an admirable draw-
ing by Mr. Bauer. On this Aphis see Forsyth, 265 ; Monthh/ Mag.
xxxii. 320 ; and also for August 1811 ; and Sir Joseph Banks in the
Hvrtici.dlioal Svcicti/s Transactivns, ii. KJiJ.

200 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

Our more dainty and delicate fruits, at least such as
are usually so accounted, the apricot, the peach, and the
nectarine, originally of Asiatic origin, are not less sub-
ject to the empire of insects than the homelier natives of
Europe. Certain Aphides form a convenient and shel-
tered habitation for themselves, by causing portions of
the leaves to rise into hollow red convexities ; m these
they reside, and, with their rostrum pumping out the
sap, in time occasion them to curl up, and thus deform
the tree and injure the produce. The fruit is attacked
by various other enemies of this class, against which we
find it not easy to secure it : wasps, earwigs, flies, wood-
lice, and ants, which last communicate to it a disagree-
able flavour, all share with us these ambrosial treasures ;
the first of them as it were opening the door, by making
an incision in the rind, and letting in all the rest. — The
nucleus of the apricot is also sometimes inhabited by the
caterpillar of a moth, which devouring the kernel causes
the fruit to fall prematurely *. — In this country, how-
ever, these fruits may be regarded as mere luxuries, and
therefore are of less consequence ; but in North Ame-
rica they constitute an important part of the general pro-
duce, at least the peach, serving both as food for swine,
and furnishing by distillation a useful spirit. The ra-
vages committed upon them there by insects are so se-
rious, that premiums have been offered for extirpating
them. A species of weevil, perhaps a Rynchites of
Herbst, enters the fruit when unripe, probably laying its
eggs within the stone, and so destroys them. And two
kinds of Zygcena^ F., by attacking the roots do a still

» M. de la Hire in Reaum. ii. 478.

.a

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 201

greater injury to the trees*. — A Coccus, as it should
seem from the description, imported about thirty years
ago from tlie Mauritius, or else with the Constantia vine
from the Cape of Good Hope, has destroyed nearly
nine-tenths of the peach trees in the Island of St. Helena,
where formerly they were so abundant, that, as in North
America,' the swine were fed with tliem. Various means
have been employed to destroy this plague, but hitherto
without success^. — The imperial pine-apple, the glory
of our stoves, and the most esteemed of the gifts of Po-
mona, cannot, however precious, be defended from the
injuries of a singular species of mite, the 7'ed Spider of
gardeners, {Acarus telarmsy L.,) which covers them, and
other stove plants, with a most delicate but at the same
time veiy pernicious web. — The olive tree, so valuable
to the inhabitants of the warmer regions of Europe, often
nourishes in its berries the destructive maggot of a fly
{Oscinis Olece, Latr.) ; and the caterpillar of a little moth
[Tinea Oleella, F.), which preys upon the kernel of the
nucleus, occasions them to fall before they are ripe. —
Every one who eats nuts knows that they are very often
inhabited by a small white grub ; this is the offspring of
a weevil [Curculio Nucum, L.) remarkable for its long
and slender rostrum, with which it perforates the shell
when young and soft, and deposits an egg in the orifice.
— In France it sometimes happens, when the chesnuts

» Dr. Smith Barton's Letter in Philos. Magaz. xxii. 210. William
Dav3', Esq. American Consul of the Port of Hull, long resident in
the United States, informed me that though he had abundance of
peaches at his country-house, German Town near Philadelphia, he
could never succeed with the nectarine, the fruit constantly falling
oft' perforated by the grub of some insect.

" Dcscr. of the I. of St. Helena, 147.

202 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

promise an abundant crop, that the fruit falls before it
comes to maturity, scarcely any remaining upon the trees.
The caterpillar of a moth which eats into its interior is
the cause of this disappointment^. — Of fruits the date
has the hardest nucleus ; yet an insect of the same tribe
with the above, that feeds upon its kernel, is armed with
jaws sufficiently strong to perforate it, that it may make
its escape when the time of its change is arrived, and as-
sume the pupa between the stone and the flesh. The
date is eaten also by a beetle which Hasselquist calls a
Dermestes^.

One of the most delicious, and at the same time most
useful, of all our fruits is the grape : to this, as you know,
we are indebted for our raisins, for our currants, for our
wine, and for our brandy ; you cannot therefore but feel
interested in its history, and desire to be informed, whe-
ther, like those before enumerated, this choice gift of
heaven, whose jiroduce " cheereth God and man"^,"
must also be the prey of insects. There is a singular
beetle, common in Hungary, {Lelkrus cephalotes, F.)
which gnaws off the young shoots of the vine, and drags
them backward into its burrow, where it feeds upon
them : on this account the country people wage conti-
nual war with it, destropng vast numbers'". — Three
other beetles also attack this noble plant : two of them,
mentioned by French authors, [ItyncJdics Bacchus and
Eiimoljjus Viiis,) devour the young shoots, the foliage
and the footstalks of the fruit, so that the latter is pre-

» Reaum. ii. SO.").

^ Ibid. ii. /lO/- i^ncl Ilatiseiquist's Travels in the Levant, 428.

* That is " IJigli and Low," Judges ix. 13.

^ Sturm Dculiililtouh .Fauna, i. 5.

INDIIIECT INJURlEfS CAUSED BY INSECTS. 203

vented from coming to maturity ^ ; and a third (C. Corrup-
tor. Host,) by a German, which seems closely allied to
CurciiUo Vasfator, E. B., (C. picipes, F.) if it be not the
same insect. This destroys the young vines, often killing
them the first year; and is accounted so terrible an enemy
to them, that not only the animals but even their eggs are
searched for and destroyed, and to forward this work peo-
ple often call in the assistance of their neighbours^. — In
the Crimea the small caterpillar of a Procris or Zygaena,
(lepidopterous genera separated from Sphinx, L.) related
to P. Siatices, F., is a still more destructive enemy. As
soon as the buds open in the spring, it eats its way into
them, especially the fruit buds, and devours the germ of
the grape. Two or three of these caterpillars will so in-
jure a vine, by creeping from one germ to another, that
it will bear no fruit nor produce a single regular shoot
the succeeding year ^. — Vine leaves in France are also fre-
quently destroyed by the larva of a moth [Pijralis viiana,
F.); in Germany another species does great injury to the
young bunches, preventing their expansion by the webs
in which it involves them'*; and a third {Pyralisfasciana,
F.) makes the grapes themselves its food : a similar insect
is alluded to in the threat contained in Deuteronomy *^. —
The worst pest of the vine in this country is its Coccus
(C Vitis, L.). This animal, which fortunately is not suffi-
ciently hardy to endure the common temperature of our
atmosphere, sometimes so abounds upon those that are
cultivated in stoves and greenhouses, that their stems

^ Latreille, Hist. Nat. xi. m. 331.

^ Host in Jacquin. Colled, iii. 297

' Pallas's Tmvch in S. Russia, ii. 341. ^ Jacqulu. Colled. 11.97.

=■ Dcut. xxvili, 39.

204- INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

seem quite covered with little locks of white cotton; which
appearance is caused by a filamentous secretion transpiring
through the skin of the animal, in which they envelop their
eggs. Where they prevail they do great injury to thje
plant by subtracting the sap from its foliage and fruit,
and causing it to bleed. — And to close the list, you are
perfectly aware of the eagerness with which wasps, flies,
and other insects, attack the grapes when ripe, often leav-
ing nothing but the mere skin for their lordly proprietor.
There are some of these creatures that attack indiscri-
minately all fruit-trees. One of these is the Tettigonia
septendecim, F., (so called because, according to Kalm, it
appears only once in seventeen years*.) The female ovi-
posits in the pith of the twigs of trees, "vvhere the grubs
are hatched, and do infinite damage both to fruit- and
forest-trees^. — Another, the caterpillar of the butterfly
of the hawthorn, [Papilio Cratcegi, L.) which in 1791, in
some parts of Germany, stripped the fruit-trees in general
of their foliage "=. — In France also in 1731 and 1732 that
of a moth which seems related to the brown-tail moth
[Bombyx phceorhcea, F.), whose history has been given by
die late Mr. Cmtis, was so nmnerous as to occasion a
general alarm. The oaks, elms, and white-thorn hedges
looked as if some burning wind had passed over them and
dried up their leaves; for, the insect devouring only one
surface of them, that which is left becomes brown and dry.
They also laid waste the fruit-trees, and even devoured
the fruit; so that th^ parliament published an edict to com-
pel people to collect and destroy them: but this would in
a great measure have been ineffectual, had not some cold

" Travels, ii. 6, •» CoUinson in Philos. Trans, liv. x. 65,

•^ Rosel, I. ii. 15.

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 205

rains fallen, which so completely annihilated them, that
it was difficult to meet with a single individual*.

If we quit the orchard and fruit-garden for a walk in
our plantations and groves^ we shall still be forced to wit-
ness the sad effects of insect devastation; and when we see,
as sometimes happens, the hedges and trees entirely de-
prived of their foliage, and ourselves of the shade we love
from the fervid beam of the noon-day sun ; when the sing-
insT birds have deserted them: and all their music, which
has so often enchanted us by its melody, 'variety, and sweet-
ness, has ceased — we shall be tempted in our hearts to
wish the whole insect race was blotted from the page of
creation. Numerous are the agents employed in this work
of destruction. Amongst the beetles, various cockchafers
[Melolontha vulgaris^ solstitialis, and korticola^ F.) in their
perfect state act as conspicuous a part in injuring the trees,
as their grubs do in destroying the herbage. Besides the
leaves of fruit-trees, they devour those of the sycamore,
the lime, the beech, the willow, and the elm. They are
sometimes, especially the common one, astonishingly nu-
merous. Mouffet relates (but one would think that there
must be some mistake in the date, since they are never
so early in their appearance,) that on the 24th of February
1574 such a number of them fell into the river Severn as
to stop the wheels of the water-mills ''. It is also recorded
in the Philosophical Traiisactions, that in 1688 they filled
the hedges and trees of part of the county of Gal way in
such infinite numbers, as to cling to each other in clusters
like bees when they swarm; on the wing they darkened the
air, and produced a sound like that of distant drums.
' Rcaum. ii. 122. " Mouffet, ItiO.

206 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS,

When they were feeding, the noise of their jaws might be
mistaken for the sawing of timber. Travellers and people
abroad were very much annoyed by their continual flying
in their faces; and in a short time the leaves of all the trees
lor some miles round were so totally consumed by them,
that at Midsummer the country wore the aspect of the
depth of winter^.

But the criminals to whom it is principally owing that
our groves are sometimes stripped of the green robe of
summer, are the various trides of Lepidoptcra, myriads
of whose caterpillars, in certain seasons, despoil whole
districts of their beauty, and our walks of all their plea-
sure. In 1731 the oaks in France were terribly de-
vastated by the larva of Bombjjx ch'spai; Y.^, and in 1797
many of the pine forests about Bayreuth suffered a simi-
lar injury from that of J5. Monacha, F.'= Nocttia brumata,
F. is also a fearful enemy to the foliage of almost every
kind of tree ^. The woods in certain provinces of North
America are in some years entirely stripped by that of an-
other moth, which eats all kinds of leaves. This happen-
ing at a time of the year when the heat is most excessive
is attended by fatal consequences. For, being deprived
of the shelter of their foliage, whole forests are sometimes
entirely dried up and ruined ^. — The brown-tail moth,
before alluded to, which occasionally bares our hawthorn
hedges, has been rendered famous by the alarm it caused
to the inhabitants of the vicinity of the metropolis in 1 782,
when rewards were offered for collecting the caterpillars,
and the churchwardens and overseers of the parishes at-

"" Philos. Trans, xix. 741. ^ Reaum. i. 387.

«^ Wiener Verzcich. 8vo. 75. '' De Geer, ii. 452.
* Kalm's Travels, ii. 7. *

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 207

tended to see them burnt by bushels. — You may have ob-
served perhaps in some cabinets of foreign insects an ant,
tlie head of whicli is very large in proportion to the size
of its body, with a piece of leaf in its mouth many times
bigger than itself. These ants, called in Tobago parasol
ants {Fo?'?nica cephalotes, L.), cut circular pieces out of the
leaves of various trees and plants, which they carry in their
jaws to their nests, and they will strip a tree of its leaves
in a night, a circumstance which has been confirmed to
me by Captain Hancock*. Stedman mentions another
very large ant, being at least an inch in length, which has
the same instinct. It was a pleasant spectacle, he observes,
to behold this army of ants marching constantly in the
same direction, and each individual with its bit of green
leaf in its mouth''. The injuiy thus caused to trees by
insects is not confined to the mere loss of their leaves for
one season; for it occasions them to draw upon the funds
of another, by sending forth premature shoots and making
gems unfold, that, in the ordinary course, would not have
put forth their foliage till the following year.

Other insects, though they do not entirely devour the
leaves of trees and plants, yet considerably diminish their
beauty. Thus, for instance, sometimes the subcutaneous
larvae undermine them, when the leaf exhibits the whole
course of their labyrinth in a pallid, tortuous, gradually
dilating line — at others the Tortrices disfigure them by

* The same intelligent gentleman related to me, that a person hav-
ing taken some land at Bahia in the Brazils, he was comj3clled by
these ants, which were so numerous as to render every effort to de-
stroy them ineffectual, to relinquish the occupation of it. Their nests
were excavated to the astonishing depth of fourteen feet. Merian I77-
sect. Sur. 18. Smeathman on Termites, Phil. Trans, Ixxi. 39. note 35,

'* Stedman, ii. 142.

208 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

rolling them up, or the leaf-cutter bees by taking a piece
out of them, or certain Tineje again by eating their
under surface, and so causing them to wither either par-
tially or totally. You have doubtless observed what is
called the honey-dew upon the maple and other trees,
concerning which the learned Roman naturalist Pliny
gravely hesitates whether he shall call it the sweat of the
heavens, the saliva of the stars, or a liquid produced by
the purgation of the air * ! ! Perhaps you may not be
aware that it is a secretion of Aphides, whose excrement
has the privilege of emulating sugar and honey in sweet-
ness and purity. It however often tarnishes the lustre
of those trees in which these insects are nmnerous, and
is the lure that attracts the swarms of ants which you
may often see travelling up and down the trunk of the
oak and other trees. The larch in particular is inhabited
by an Aphis transpiring a waxy substance like filaments
of cotton : this is sometimes so infinitely multiplied upon
it as to whiten the whole tree, which often perishes in
consequence of its attack. The beech is infested by a
similar one. Some animals also of this genus inhabiting
the poplar, elm, lime, and willow, reside in galls they
have produced, that disfigure the leaves or their foot-
stalks. Perhaps those resembling fruit, or flowers, or
moss, produed by the Aphis of the fir [Aphis Abictis^ L.),
the diffei'ent species of gall-gnats [Cecidoviyia, Latr.), or
occasioned by the puncture and oviposition of the various
kinds of gall-flies [Cynips, L.), may be regarded rather
as an ornament than as an injury to a tree or shrub; yet
when too numerous they must deprive it of its proper
nutriment, and so occasion some defect. And probably
=■ Hist, Xal. I. xi. c. 12.

INDIBECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 209

the enormous wens, and other monstrosities and defor-
mities observable in trees, may have been originally pro-
duced by the bite or incision of insects.

Besides exterior insect enemies, living trees are liable
to the ravages of many that are interior. The caterpil-
lar of the great goat moth Cossics {ligniperda, F.), of the
hornet hawk-moth (Sesia crabronifminis, F.), and of two
beetles {Nitidula grisea, F., and Curadio Lapathi, L.),
devour the wood of the willow and sallow, which thus in
time often become so hollow as to be easily blown down.
The bee hawk-moth [Sesia apiformis, F. ^), and probably
Ryyichites Popidi, a brilliant green weevil, feeds upon the
^o\A?iY^—Prionus coriarius is sometimes found in the oak
and sometimes in the elm, and BostricJms Pint, F. in
the Scotch fir. Mr. Stephens informs me that the fir-
trees in a plantation of Mr, Foljambe's in Yorkshire were
destroyed by a hjrmenopterous insect [Sirex Gigas, L.),
while those of another belonging to the same gentleman
in Wiltshire met with a similar fate from the attack of
Sirex Juvencus, L. — When the sap flows from wounds in
a tree it is attended by various other beetles, (I have
observed Cetonia aurata, F., and several Nitidulce and
Stapliylinidce busy in this way,) which prevent it from
healing so soon as it would otherwise do; and if the
bark be any where separated fi*om the wood, a numerous
army of wood-lice, eainvigs, spiders, field-bugs, and si-
milar sidicortical insects take their station there and
prevent a re-union.

The mischief however produced by any or all of these,
is not to be compared with that sometimes sustained in

* Lewin in Lmn. Trans, iii. 1. — Curtis in do. i. 86.
VOL.1. P

210 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

Germany from the attacks of a small beetle, ( Bostrichus
Typographus^ F.,) so called on account of a fancied
resemblance between the paths it erodes and letters,
which bores into the fir. This insect, in its preparatory
state, feeds upon the soft inner bark only : but it attacks
this important part in such vast numbers, 80,000 behig
sometimes found in a single tree, that it is infinitely more
noxious than any of those that bore into the wood : and
such is its vitality, that though the bark be battered and
the tree plunged into water, or laid upon the ice or snow,
it remains alive and unhurt. The leaves of the trees
infested by these insects first become yellow, the trees
themselves then die at the top, and soon entirely ]:)erish.
Their ravages have long been known in Germany under
the name of Warm truhiiss (decay caused by worms) ; and
in the old liturgies of that country the animal itself is
formally mentioned imder its vulgar appellation, " The
Turk." This pest was particularly prevalent and caused
incalcidable mischief about the year 1665. In tlie begin-
ning of the last century it again showed itself in the
Hartz forests — it reappeared in 1757, redoubled its in-
juries in 1769, and arrived at its height hi 1783, when
the number of trees destroyed by it in the above forests
alone, was calculated at a million pud a half, and the
inhabitants were threatened with a total suspension of
the working of their mines, and consequent ruin. At
this period these Bostrichi, when arrived at their perfect
state, migrated in swarms like bees into Suabia and Fran-
conia. At length, between the years 178i and 1789, in
consequence of a succession of cold and moist seasons,
the numbers of this scourge were sensibly diminished.
It appeared again however in 1790, and so late as 1796

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 211

tliore was great reason to fear for the few lir-trecs that
were left*.

Tlie seeds of forest- as well as of fruit-trees are doubt-
less subject to injuries from the same quarter, but these
being more out of the reach of observation, have not been
much noticed. Acorns, however, a considerable article
with nurserymen, are said to have both a moth and a
beetle that prey upon them; and what is remarkable,
though sometimes one larva of each is found in the same
acorn, yet two of either kind are never to be met with
together''. The beetle is probably the Curculio Glandium
of Mr. Marsham, and is nearly related to the species
whose grub inhabits the nut.

Having now conducted j'ou round and exhibited to
you the melancholy proofs of the universal dominion of
insects over our vegetable treasures, while growing or
endued with the principle of vitality, in their separate
departments, — I must next introduce you to a pest worse
than all put together, which indiscriminately attacks and
destroys every vegetable substance that the earth pro-
duces, and which, wherever it prevails, carries famine,
pestilence and death in its train. Happily for this country
and we cannot be too thankful for the privilege, we know
this scourge of nations only by report. The name of
Locust, which has been such a sound of horror in other
countries, here only suggests an object of interesting in-
quiry. But the ravages of locusts are so copious a theme
that they merit to be considered in a separate letter.

I am, &c.

' Wilheliu's Recreations fro}ii. Nat. Hist, quoted by Latreille Hist.
Nat. xi. 194. * '' Reaum. ii. 50,^2,

p2

LETTER VII.

INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

INDIRECT INJURIES CONTINUED.

J. o look at a loaist in a cabinet of insects, you would
not, at first sight, deem it capable of being the source of
so much evil to mankind as stands on record against it.

" This is but a small creature," you would say, " and
the mischief which it causes cannot be far beyond the
proportion of its bulk. The locusts so celebrated in his-
tory must surely be of the Indian kind mentioned by
Pliny, which were three feet in length, with legs so
stronjT that the women used them as saws. I see indeed
some resemblance to the horse's head, but where are the
eyes of the elephant, the neck of the bull, the horns of
the stag, the chest of the lion, the belly of the scorpion,
the wings of the eagle, the thighs of the camel, the legs
of the ostrich, and the tail of the serpent, all of which
the Arabians mention as attributes of this widely dreaded
insect destroyer ^ ; but of which in the insect before me
I discern little or no likeness ? " Yet, although this ani-
mal be not very tremendous for its size, nor very terrific
in its appearance, it is the very same whose ravages have
been the theme of naturalists and historians in all ages,
and upon a close examination you will find it to be pe-
culiarly fitted and furnished for the execution of its

' Bochart, Jlicrnzoic. P. ii. 1. iv. c. 5. 475.

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 213

office. It is armed with two pair of very strong jaws,
the upper terminating in short and the lower in lon<r
teeth, by which it can both lacerate and grind its food —
its stomach is of extraordinary capacity and powers — its
hind legs enable it to leap to a considerable distance,
and its ample vans are calculated to catch the whid as
sails, and so to carry it sometimes over the sea ; and al-
though a single individual can effect but little evil, yet
when the entire surface of a country is covered by them,
and every one makes bare the spot on which it stands,
the mischief produced may be as infinite as their num-
bers. So well do the Arabians know their power, that
they make a locust say to Mahomet — " We are the
army of the Great God ; we produce ninety-nine eggs ;
if the hundred were completed, we should consume the
whole earth and all that is in it^."

Since it is possible you may not have paid particular
attention to the accounts given by various authors both
ancient and modern, of the almost incredible injury done
to the human race by these creatures, I shall now lay
before you some of the most striking particulars of their
devastations that I have been able to collect.

The earliest plague of this kind which has been re-
corded, appears also to have been the most direful in
its immediate effects that ever was inflicted upon any
nation. I am speaking, as you may well suppose, of the
locusts with which the Egyptian tyrant and his people
were visited for their oppression of the Israelites. Only
conceive to yourself a country so covered by them that
no one can see the face of the ground — a whole land
darkened, and all its produce, whether herb or tree, so
•' Bochart, ubi supr, c. 6. -IS.?.

214' INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

devoured that not the least vestige of green is left in ei-
ther ^. — But it is not necessary for nie to enlarge further
upon a history the circumstances of which are so well
known to you.

To this species of devastation Africa in general seems
always to have been peculiarly subject. This may be
gathered from the law in Cyrenaica mentioned by Pliny,
by which the inhabitants were enjoined to destroy the
locusts in three different states, three times in the year
' — first their eggs, then their young, and lastly the perfect
insect ^. And not without reason Avas such a law enacted ;
for Orosius tells us that in the year of the world 3,800
Africa w^as infested by such infinite myriads of these
animals, that having devoured every green thing, after
flying off to sea they were drowned, and being cast upon
the shore they emitted a stench greater than could have
been produced by the carcases of 100,000 men *=. St
Augustine also mentions a plague to have arisen in that
country from the same cause, which destroyed no less than
800, 000 persons {octingetita hoyninum millia) in the king-
dom of Masanissa alone, and many more in the territories
bordering upon the sea''.

From Africa this plague was occasionally imported into
Italy and Spain; and a historian quoted in Mouffet re-
lates that in the year 591 an infinite army of locusts of a
size unusually large, grievously ravaged part of Italy ; and
bemg at last cast into the sea, from tlreir stench arose a
pestilence which carried off near a million of men and

» Exod. X. 5. 14, 15. b Hist. Nat. 1. xi. c, 29. A similar

law was enacted in Lemnos, b}' which every one was compelled to
bring a certain measure of locusts annually to the magistrates. Plin.
ibid. *^ Oros. contra Pag. I. v, c. S. "^ Lcsserj L. '2i7. note 46.

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 215

beasts. In Uie Venetian territory, also, in 1478 more than
30,000 persons are said to have perished in a famine oc-
casioned by these terrific scourges. Many other instances
of their devastations in Europe, in France, Spain, Italy,
Germany, &c. ^y are recorded by the same author. In
1650 a cloud of them was seen to enter Russia in three
different places, which from thence passed over into Po-
land and Lithuania, whei'e the air was darkened by their
numbers. In some places they were seen lying dead heaped
one upon another to the depth of four feet; in others they
covered the surface like a black cloth, the trees bent Avith
their weight, and the damage they did exceeded all com-
putation''. At a later period in Languedoc when tlie sun
became hot they took wing and fell upon the corn, de-
vouring both leaf and ear, and that with such expedition
that in three hours they would consume a whole field.
After having eaten up the corn they attacked the vines,
the pulse, the willows, and lastly the hemp notwithstanding
its bitterness*^. Sir H. Davy informs US'* that the French
government in 1 8 1 3 issued a decree with a view to occasion
the destruction of grasshoppers.

Even this happy island, so remarkably distinguished
by its exemption from most of those scourges to which
other nations are exposed, was once alarmed by the ap-
pearance of locusts. In 174'8 they were observed here in
considerable numbers, but providentially they soon pe-
rished without propagating. These were evidently strag-
glers from the vast swarms which in the preceding year
did such infinite damage in Wallachia, Moldavia, Tran-
sylvania, Hungary, and Poland. One of these swarms,

»Mouffet, 123. " Binglcy, iii. 358. " P/nlos.Tmnj. 1680.

'^ Elements of Agikulturul Chernxsiry^ 'i'oi.

216 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

which entered Transylvania in August, was several hun-
dred fathoms in width, (at Vienna the breadth of one of
them was three miles,) and extended to so great a length
as to be four hours in passing over the Red Tower; and
such was its density that it totally intercepted the solar
light, so that when they flew low one person could not see
another at the distance of twenty paces*. A similar ac-
count has been given me by a friend of mine"^ long resi-
dent in India. He relates that when at Poonah he was
witness to an immense army of locusts which ravaged the
Mahratta country, and was supposed to come from Arabia
(this, if correct, is a strong proof of their power to pass
the sea under favourable circumstances). The colimm
they composed, my fi'iend was informed, extended five
hundred miles; and so compact was it, when on the wing,
that like an eclipse it completely hid the sun, so that no
shadow was cast by any object, and some lofty tombs di-
stant from his residence not more than two hundred yards
were rendered quite invisible. This was not the Gryllus
viigratorius, L., but a red species; which circumstance
much increased the horror of the scene; for, clustering
upon the trees after they had stripped them of their foli-
age, they imparted to them a sanguine hue. The peach
was the last tree that they touched.

Dr. Clarke, to give some idea of the infinite numbers
of these animals, compares them to a flight of snow when
the flakes are carried obliquely by the wind. They co-
vered his carriage and horses, and the Tartars assert that
people are sometimes suffocated by them. The whole
face of nature might have been described as covered by a

■' Philos. Trans, xlvi. 30. ^ Major Moor, author of The Nar-

rative of Captain Little's Uclac/inicnf, The Hindu Panlhcofi,&c.

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 217

living veil. They consisted of two species, G. tataricus
and viigratorius, L. ; the first is almost twice the size of
the second, and, because it precedes it, is called by the
Tartars the herald or messenger *. — The accomit of an-
other traveller, Mr. Barrow, of their ravages in the south-
ern parts of Africa (in ITS^ and 1797) is still more strik-
ing: an area of nearly two thousand square miles might
be said literally to be covered by them. When driven
into the sea by a N. W. wind, they formed upon the shore
for fifty miles a bank three or four feet higli, and when
the wind was S. E. the stench was so powerful as to be
smelt at the distance of 150 miles''.

From 1778 to 1 780 the empire of Morocco was terribly
devastated by them, every green thing was eaten up, not
even the bitter bark of the orange and pomegranate escap-
ing— a most dreadful famine ensued. — The poor were
seen to wander over the country deriving a miserable sub-
sistence from the roots of plants; and women and children
followed the camels, from whose dung they picked the in-
digested grains of barle}', which they devoured with avi-
dity : in consequence of this, vast numbers perished, and
the roads and streets exhibited the unburied carcases of
the dead. On this sad occasion, fathers sold their chil-
dren, and husbands their wives'^. When they visit a
country, says Mr. Jackson, speaking of the same empire,
it behoves every one to lay in provision for a famine, for
they stay from three to seven years. When they have
devoured all other vegetables, they attack the trees, con-
suming first the leaves and then the bark. From Moga-

^ Travels, i. 348. t' Tmvch, &c. 257.

c Southcy's Thalaba,\. 171.

218 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

dor to Tangier, before the plague in 1 799, the face of the
earth was covered by them — at that time a singular inci-
dent occured at El Araiche. The whole region from the
confines of the Sahara was ravaged by them : but on the
other side of the river El Kos not one of them was to be seen,
though there was nothing to prevent their flying over it.
Till then they had proceeded northward; but upon arriv-
ing at its banks they turned to the east, so that all the coun-
try north of El Araiche was full of pulse, fruits and grain,
— exhibiting a most striking contrast to the desolation of
the adjoining district. At length they were all carried
by a violent hurricane into the Western Ocean; the shore,
as in former instances, was covered by their carcases,
and a pestilence was caused by the horrid stench which
they emitted: — but when this evil ceased, their devasta-
tions were followed by a most abundant crop. The Arabs
of the Desert, "whose hands are against every man ^5"
and who rejoice in the evil that befalls other nations,
when they behold the clouds of locusts proceeding from
the north are filled with gladness, anticipating a general
mortality, which they call El-KJiere (tlie benediction);
for, when a comitry is thus laid waste, they emerge from
their arid deserts and pitch their tents in the desolated
plains''.

The noise the locusts make when engaged in the work
of destruction has been compared to the sound of a flame
of fire driven by the wind, and the effect of their bite
to that of fire ^. A wild poet of our day has very striking-
ly described the noise produced by their flight and ap-
proach:

^ Genes, xvi. 13. '' Jackson's Travels in Marocco, 54.

•■ !See Bochart, Hicivzoir. V, 1, iv, c, .5. 'i7-l-5.

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 219

" Onward the}' came a dark continuous cloud
Of congregated mjriads numberless,
The rushing of whose wings was as the sound
Of a broad river headlong in its course
Plunged from a mountain summit, or the roiir
Of a wild ocean in the autinnn storm
Shattering its billows on a shore of rocks'' ! "

But no account of tlic apjiearance and ravages of these
terrific insects, for correctness and sublimity, comes near
that of the prophet Joe], " A day of darkness and of gloom-
iness, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morn-
ing spread upon the mountains: a great people and a
strong: there hath not been ever tlie like, neither shall be
any more after it, even to the years of many generations.
A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame
burnetii : the land is as the garden of Eden before them,
and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing
shall escape them. Like the noise of chariots ^ on the tops
of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of
fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in
battle array. Before their faces the people shall be much
pained: all faces shall gather blackness. They shall run
like mighty men ; they shall climb the wall like men of war,
and they shall march every one on his ways, and they
shall not break their ranks ; neither shall one thrust an-
other, they shall walk every one in his path : and when
they fall upon the sword they shall not be wounded.
They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon
the wall, they shall climb up upon the houses ; they shall

* Southey's Tkalaba, i. 160.

^ Of the symbolical locusts hi the Apocalypse it is said—" And the '
sound of their wings was as the sound uf cliariots, of many liorses
running to battle." iix. 3,

220 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

enter in at the windows like a thief. The earth shall
^uake before them, the heavens shall tremble: the sun
and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw
their shining ! " The usual way in which they are destroy-
ed is also noticed by the prophet. "I will remove far off*
from you the northern army, and will drive him into a
land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east
sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his
stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, be-
cause he hath done great things * !"

I think, after a serious consideration of all these well
attested facts, when locusts contend with the two-legged
destroyers of the human race for proud pre-eminence in
mischief, you will find it difficult to determine to which
the palm should be decreed ; and you will admire the pro-
priety with which, in the above and other passages of
Holy Writ, they are selected as symbols of the great ra-
vagers of the earth of our own species.

In many of the above instances these devastators ap-
pear to have crossed the seas, but Hasselquist asserts that
they are not formed for such extensive flights. *' The
gi'asshopper or locust, " says he, " is not formed for tra-
velling over the sea, — it cannot fly far, but must alight
as soon as it rises ; — for one that came on board us a hun-
dred certainly were drowned. We observe in the months
of May and June a number of these insects coming from
the south, and directmg their course to the northern shore;
they darken the sky like a thick cloud : but scarcely have
they quitted the shore, when they, who a moment before
ravaged and ruined the country, cover the surface of the
sea with their dead bodies. — By what instinct do these
« Joel ii. 2-10. SO.

ISDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 221

creatures undertake this dangerous flight ? Is it not tlie
wise institution of tlie Creator to destroy a dreadful
plague to the country'?" Locusts however, as we have
seen, take much longer flights than this author supposes
them able to do. It is probable that their ability in this
respect may depend a good deal upon their species, their
age, and the state and direction of the wind ; for, as was
the case with the Eg}iDtian plague,

" a pitchy cloud

Of locusts warping on the eastern wind "

may by a powerful blast be carried over a broad river, of
even the sea, from one country to another. This idea is
strongly confirmed by an account, exhibiting internal
marks of authenticity, which appeared in the Alexandria
Herald, an American newspaper ; in which it is stated,
that at the distance of 200 miles from the Canary Islands,
the nearest land, the ship Georgia, Capt. Stokes, from
Lisbon to Savannah, while sailing with a fine breeze from
the south-east, was, on the 2 1st of Nov. 1811, all at once
becalmed. " A light air afterwards spi'ang up from the
north-east, at which time there fell from the cloud an in-
numerable quantity of large grasshoppers, so as to cover
the deck, the tops and every part of the ship they could
alight upon. They did not appear in the least exhaust-
ed ; on the contrary, when an attempt was made to take
hold of them, they instantly jumped, and endeavoured
to elude being taken. The calm, or a very light air, lasted
fully an hour, and during the whole of the time these
insects continued to fall upon the ship and surround her ;
such as were within reach of the vessel alighted upon

* Vot/age to the Levant, 444.

222 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

her ; but immense numbers fell into the sea, and were seen
floating in masses by the sides." Two bottles of them
were preserved for inspection ; the insects were of a reddish
hue, with red and gray speckled wings. It is clear from
this account, if it be admitted as authentic, that locusts
can go far from land when the wind is strong, and likewise
it seems equally clear that in a calm they cannot support
themselves in the air. The principal difficulty is, how
these locusts could make their way against the wind, which
they must have done if they came with the black cloud,
as the words seem to intimate. Perhaps this cloud was
brought by a different current of air from that which im-
pelled the ship.

With respect to the course which the locusts pursue,
Hasselquist has observed that they migrate in a direct
meridian line from south to north, passing from the deserts
of Arabia, which is the great cradle of them, to Palestine,
Syria, Carmania, Natolia, Bithynia, Constantinople, Po-
land, &c. — they never turn either to the east or to the
west ^. But this must be a mistaken notion ; for those
which Major Moor saw at Poonah, of which I have given
an account above ^, must have come due east. Mr.
Jackson also noticed their course north of the line to be
towards the south '^ ; and Sparrman tells us, that those
south of the line migrate in the same direction'^.

I fear that Hasselquist's question. Could they not by
fright, or some other method, be turned from their dread-
ful course, to steer for some river, and by that means be
obliged to destroy themselves*^? must be answered in the

* Voi/age to the Levant, p. 446-7. ^ See p. 21 G.

•^ Travels, 54. '^ Travels, i. 36G.

* Travels, 455.

INDIUF.CT INJUIIIES CAl'SED BY INSECTS. 223

negative. All such experiments, it is to be apprehended,
would be about as effectual as sending an anny, with all
the apparatus of war, to take- the field against them, as
this author says is done in Syria, where tlie Bashaw of
Tripoli once raised a force of 4000 soldiers to fight the
locusts, and very summarily ordered all to be hanged
who thinking it beneath them to waste their valour ujiou
such pygmy foes, refused to join the party ^.

I am, &c.

" Travels, 447.

LETTER VIII.

INJURIES CAUSED BY IXSECTS,

INDIRECT INJURIES CONCLUDED.

I HAVE not yet arrived at the end of my catalogue of
noxious insects. I have introduced you, indeed, to those
that annoy man in his own person, in his domestic ani-
mals, in the produce of his fields, gardens, orchards, and
forests ; in a word, in every thing that is endued with the
vital principle : but I have as yet said nothing of the in-
juries which he receives from them in that part of his
property, consisting either of animal or vegetable matter,
Jtom which that principle is departed. And with these I
shall conclude this melancholy detail of evil inflicted upon
us by the very animals I am enticing you to study. The
rest of my correspondence, I flatter myself, will paint
them in more inviting colours.

The insects to which I now allude may be divided into
those that attack and injure our food, our drugs and
medicines, our clothes, our houses and furniture, our
timber, and even the objects of our studies and amuse-
ments.

Various are those that attempt to share our Jbod with
us. Flour and meal are eaten by the grub of Tenebrio
Molitor, L., best known by the name of the meal-womi,

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 225

which will remain in it two years before it goes into its
state of inactivity : — its ravages however are not confined
to flour alone, for it will eat any thing made of that arti-
cle, such as bread, cakes, and the like. Old flour is also
very apt to be infested by a mite {Acanis Farina;, L.)^.
In long voyages the biscuit sometimes so swarms with
the weevil and another beetle [Dermestes paiiiceus, L.)
that they are swallowed with every mouthful ; and even
the ground peas so abound with these little vermin, that
a spoonful of soup cannot be taken free from them''.
Bread is also devoured by Trogosita carahoides^ a larger
beetle before alluded to *=.

Every one is aware that our animal food suffers still
more than our farinaceous from insects ; but perhaps you
would not expect that our hams, bacon, and dried meats
should have their peculiar beetle. Yet so it is ; and this
beetle, [Dermestes lardarius, L.,) when a grub, some-
times commits great devastation in them ; as does that of
another described by De Geer under the name of Tene-
brio lardarius'^. How much our fresh meat of all kinds,
our poultry and fish, are exposed to the flesh-fly, whose
maggots will turn us disgusted from our tables, if we do
not carefully guard these articles from being blown by

^ Amcen. Acad. iii. 345.

^ Sparrman, i. 103. This insect, by Swedish entomologists, is sup-
posed to be a species of Anobium, F., ( Ptinus, L.,) but the specimen
preserved in the Linnean cabinet is Silpha rosea of Mr. Marsham
\Chrysomela pectoralis, F.). A small beetle of the first family of Cry-
ptophagus of Major Gyllenhal swarms often in the ship biscuit, and
may probably be the insect Sparrman here complains of under the
name of Deriiiestes paniceus.

' See above, p. 171.

** De Geer, v. 46. This insect appears nearly related to Mr. Mar-
sham's Coriicaria 2ndla(E. B.'i. 11. 14.), ifit be not the same insect.
VOL. I. O

226 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

tliem, you well know ; — and assailants more violent, hor-
nets, wasps, and the great rove-beetle, [Staphylimis max-
illosus, L.) if butchers do not protect their shambles, will
cany off no inconsiderable portion of tlieir meat. A
small cock-roach [Blatta lapponica, L.) which I have
taken upon our eastern coast, swarms in the huts of the
Laplanders, and will sometimes annihilate in a single day,
a work in which a carrion-beetle {Silpha lapponica, L.)
joins, their whole stock of dried fish*. The quantity of
sugar that flies and wasps will devour, if they can come
at it, especially the latter, the diminutive size of the crea-
tures considered, is astonishing : — in one year long ago,
when sugar was much cheaper than it is now, a trades-
man told me he calculated his loss, by the wasps alone,
at twenty pounds. A singular spectacle is exhibited in
India (so Captain Green relates) by a small red ant with
a black head. They march in long files, about three
abreast, to any place where sugar is kept ; and when they
are saturated, return in the same order, but by a diffe-
rent route. If the sugar, upon which they are busy, be
carried into the sun, they immediately desert it. WTiat
is very extraordinary, these ants ai'e also fond of oil.
Sweetmeats and preserves are very subject to be attacked
by a minute oblong transparent mite with very short legs
and without any hair upon its body. Our butter and
lard are stated to be eaten by the caterpillar of a moth
[Crambus pinguhialis, F.). Musca putris, L., the parent
fly of the jumping cheese-maggot, loses no opportunity,
we know, of laying its eggs in our fresh cheeses, and
when they get dry and old the mite {Acarus Siro, L.)

" Amavi. Acad, iii. 345.

INDinECT I>JJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 227

settles her colonies in them, which multiply incredibly.
Other substances, more imlikely, do not escape from our
pygmy depredators. Thus Reaumur tells us of a little
moth whose larva feeds upon chocolate, observing very
justly that this could not have been its original footl*.
Both a moth and a beetle [Dermestcs sj/rina»icjisis, L.)
were detected by Xeeuwenhoek preying upon two of our
spices, the mace and the nutmeg''. The maggots of a fly
{Musca cellar is, L., Oiiiopota cellaris, K.) are found in
vinegar, in the manufactories of which the perfect insects
swarm in incredible mmibers ; and sometimes even water
in the casks of ships, in long voyages, so abounds with
larvae of this tribe as to render it extremely disgusting.
Browne, in his History of Jamaica, mentions an ant
{Formica onuiivora, L.) that consumes or spoils all kinds
of food ; which perhaps may be the same species that
has been observed in Ceylon by Percival, and is de-
scribed by him as inhabiting dwelling-houses, and speedi-
ly devouring every thing it can meet with. If at table
any one drops a piece of bread, or of other food, it in-
stantly appears in motion as if animated, from the vast
mmiber of these creatures that fasten upon it in order
to carry it off. They can be kept, he tells us, by no
contrivance from invading the table, and settling in
swarms on the bread, sugar, and such things as they
like. It is not uncommon to see a cup of tea, upon be-
ing poured out, completely covered with these creatures,
and floating dead upon it like a scum*^.

In some countries the number of flies and other in-
sects that enter the house in search of food, or allured

* Reaum, iii. 276. '' Leeuwenh. £';3w<. 9J). "^ Cet/hn, 307.
O 2

228 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

by the light, is so great as to spoil the comfort of almost
every meal. We are told that during the rainy season
in India, insects of all descriptions are so incredibly nu-
merous, and so busy every where, that it is often abso-
lutely necessary to remove the lights from the supper-
^ble : — were this not done, moths, flies, bugs, beetles,
and the like, would be attracted in such numbers as to
extinguish them entirely. When the lights are retained
on the table, in some places they are put into glass cy-
linders, which St. Pierre tells us is the custom in the
Island of Mauritius ^ ; in others the candlesticks are
placed in soup-plates, into which the insects are preci-
pitated and drowned. Nothing can exceed the irrita-
tion caused by the stinking bugs when they get into the
hair or between the linen and the body ; and if they be
bruised upon it the skin comes off''. To use the lan-
guage of a poet of the Indies, from whom some of the
above facts are selected,

" On every dish the booming beetle falls,
The cock-roach plays, or caterpillar crawls :
A thousand shapes of variegated hues
Parade the table and inspect the stews.
To living walls the swarming hundreds stick,
Or court, a dainty meal, the oily wick ;
Heaps over heaps their slimy bodies drench.
Out go the lamps with suffocating stench.
When hideous insects every plate defile.
The laugh how empty, and how forced the smile "^ ! "

Drugs and medicines also, though often so nauseous
to us, form occasionally part of the food of insects. A

» Voyage, &c. 72. " Williamson's East India Fade Mecum.

•^ Calrutta, a Poem, 85.

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS, 229

small beetle [Sinodendnim j^usillum, F. ") eats the roots of
rhubarb, in which I detected it in the East India Com-
pany's warehouses. Opium is a dainty morceau to the
white ants ^ ; — and, what is more extraordinary, Anobium
faniceum^ F. "^ (a coleopterous insect that preys naturally
upon wood) has been known to devour the blister-beetle.
— Swammerdam amongst his treasures mentions " a de-
testable beetle," produced from a worm that eats the
roots of ginseng; and he likewise notices another, the
larva of which devours the bag of the musk''. — The co-
chineal at Rio de Janeiro is the prey of an insect resem-
bling an Ichneumon, but furnished with only two wings ;
its station is in the cotton that envelops the Coccus. Pre-
vious to its assumption of the pupa it ejects a large glo-
bule of pure red colouring matter ^. And lastly, the Coc-
cus that produces the lac (C Lacca, F.) is, we are told,
devoured by various insects ^.

Perhaps you imagine that these universal destroyers
spare at least our garments, in which you may at first
conceive there can be nothing very tempting to excite
even the appetite of an insect. Your housekeeper, how-
ever, would probably tell you a different story, and en-
large upon the trouble and pains it costs her to guard
those under her care against the ravages of the moths.
Upon further inquiry you would find that nothing made of

* Piinics picc7is. Marsh.

^ On examining ninety-two chests o^ opium, part of the cargo saved
from the Charlton, previously to reshipping them from Chittagong
for China, thirteen were found to be full of white ants, which had
almost wholly devoured the opium. Article from C/iitfagong, Kov.
1812, in one of the Xeius papers, July 31, 1813.

'■ Ptimis rubellus. Marsh. ■' Bihl. Xat. i. 125. b. 126. a.

* Sir Geo. Staunton's Voi/. 8vo. 18L>.

* Kerr in Philos. Pram. 1781.

230 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

wool, whether cloth or stuff", comes amiss to them.
There are five species described by Linne, which are
more or less engaged in this work : Tinea vestianellay
tapetzella^ liellionellay sarcitella, and Mellonclla. Of the
first we have no particular history, except that it de-
stroys garments in the summer; but of the others Reau-
mur has given a complete one. T. tapetzella^ or the ta-
pestry moth, not uncommon in our houses, is most in-
jurious to the lining of carriages, which are more exposed
to the air than the furniture of our apartments. These
do not construct a moveable habitation like the common
species, but, eating their way in the thickness of the
cloth, weave themselves silken galleries in which they
reside, and which they render close and warm by cover-
ing them with some of the eroded wool^. T. pclliondla
is a most destructive insect, and ladies have often to de-
plore the ravages which it commits in their valuable furs,
whether made up into muffs or tippets — it pays no more
respect to the regal ermine than to the woollen habili-
ments of the poor ; its proper food, indeed, being hair,
though it devours both wool and fur. This species, if
hard pressed by hunger, will even eat horse-hair, and
make its habitation, a moveable house or case, in which
it travels from place to place, of this untractable mate-
rial. These little creatures will shave the hair from a
skin as neatly and closely as if a razor had been em-
ployed''.— 7^he most natural food of the next species,
T. sarcitclla^ is wool ; but in case of necessity it will eat
fur and hair. To woollen cloths or stuffs it often does
incredible injury, especially if they are not kept dry and

• Reaum. iii. 266. '' Ibid. 59.

INDIRECT INJUIUES CAUSED BY KNSECTS. 231

well aired*. Of the devastation committed by 7'. Md-
lofiella in our bee-hives I have before given you an ac-
count : to this I must here add, that if it cannot come at
wax, it will content itself with woollen cloth, leather, or
even paper''. Mr. Curtis found the grub of a beetle
{Ptimis Fur^ L.) in an old coat, which it devoured,
making holes and channels in it ; and another insect of
the same order {Dcrmcstcs Pcllio, L.), Linne tells us,
will sometimes entirely strip a fur garment of its hair'^.
A small beetle of the Capricorn tribe {Callidiwn pyg-
mccum^ F.) I have good reason to believe devours leather,
since I have found it abundant in old shoes.

Next to our garments our houses and buildings, which
shelter us and our property from tlie inclemency and inju-
ries of the atmosphere, are of consequence to us : yet
these, solid and substantial as they appear, are not se-
cure from the attack of insects ; and even our furniture
often suffers from them. A great part of our comfort
within doors depends upon our apartments being kept
clean and neat. Spiders by their webs, which they sus-
pend in every angle, and flies by their excrements, which
they scatter indiscriminately upon every thing, interfere
with this comfort, and add much to the business of our
servants. Even ants vdll sometimes plant their colonies
in our kitchens, (I have known the horse-ant, Formica
7-itfa, L., do this,) and are not easily expelled. Those
of Sierra Leone, as I was once informed by the learned
Professor Afzelius, make their way by millions through
the houses. They resolutely pursue a straight course ; and
neither buildings nor rivers, even though myriads perish

' Rcaum. iii= 42. *> Ibid. 257- ' Avian. Acad, iii. 34C.

232 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

in the attempt, can divert them from it. Nmnerous are
the tribes of insects that seek their food in our timber,
whether laid up in store for our future use, employed in
our houses, buildings, gates or fences, or made up into
furniture. The several species of Mr. Marsham's ge-
nus Ips (which includes the coleopterous genera Apate,
Bostrichiis, Hylessimis, Hylurgtis, Tomicus, Platypus,
Scolyius, and Phloiotrihiis of modern systematists) all
prey upon timber, feeding between the bark and the
wood, and many of them excavating curious pinnated
labyrinths. Almost every kind of tree has a species of
this genus appropriated to it, and some have more than
one*. The Stag-beetle tribe, or Luccmidce, and several
of the weevils^, have a similar apetite, but penetrate
deeper into the vv'ood. The most extensive family, how-
ever, of timber-borers are the Capricorn beetles, includ-
ing the Fabrician genera of Prioims, Ceramhyx, Lamia •=,
Steiioconis, Caloptts, Rhagium, Gnoma, Saperda, Calli-
dhim, and Clytus. The larva of these, as soon as hatch-
ed, leaves its first station between the bark and wood,
and begins to make its way into the solid timber, (some of
them plunging even into the iron heart of the oak, and one
even perforating lead'',) where it eats for itself tortuous

» Kirby in Linn. Trans, v. 250.

I* Curculio lignar'ms. Marsh. Rhinosimus ruficollis, Latr.

•= Many species of the genus Lamia (L. lineata rufipes and affini-
ties, now properly made a new genus under the name of Dorcadion')
are now discovered to live upon the roots of grass.

d The larva of a Ceramhyx (which Dr. Leach has discovered to be
C. Bajulus, L.) sometimes does material injury to the wood-work of
the roofs of houses in London, piercing in every direction the fir-
rafters, and, when arrived at the perfect state, making its way out even
through sheets of lead one-sixth of an inch thick, when they happen
to have been nailed upon the rafter in which it has assumed its final

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 233

paths, at its first starting perhaps not bigger than a
pin's head, but gradually increasing in dimensions as the
animal increases in magnitude, till it attains in some
instances to a diameter of one or two inches. Only con-
ceive what havoc the grub of the vast Prionus giganteiis
must make in a beam ! Percival is probably speaking
of this beetle, when, in his account of Ceylon, he tells
us, " There is an insect found here which resembles an
immense over-grown beetle. It is called by us a car-
penter, from its boring large holes in timber, of a regu-
lar form, and to the depth of several feet, in which,
when finished, it takes up its habitation*." Seeing the
perfect insect come out of these holes, an unentomolo-
gical observer would naturally conclude that the beetle
he saw had formed it, and lived hi it ; but, doubtless,
the whole was the work of the grub ^. — Of all the cole-
opterous genera there is none the species of which are
generally so rich, resplendent and beautiful as those of
Buprestis: these likewise, in their first state, there is
abundant reason to believe, derive their nutriment from
the produce of the forest, in which they sometimes re-
main for many years before they assiune their perfect
state, and appear in their full splendour, as if nature re-
quired more time than usual to decorate these lovely in-

metamorphosis. I am indebted to the kindness of Sir Joseph Banks
for a specimen of such a sheet of lead, which, though only eight inches
long and four broad, is thus pierced with twelve oval holes, of some
of which the longest diameter is a quarter of an inch ! Mr. Charles
Miller first discovered lead in the stomach of the lana of this insect.

■^ P. 310.

'' See Kirby, ubi supr. 253. — More than a hundred species of the
Capricorn tribe, many of them nondescripts, were collected in the
neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro by Captain Hancock, of the Fou-
clroyani.

231 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

sects. We learn fi-om Mr. Marsham, that the grub of
B. splendida was ascertained to have existed in the wood
of a deal table more than twenty years ^. — In this enu-
meration of timber- eating beetles, I must not forget the
Fabrician genera, Anobium and Ptilinus, because of one
oi \hera. {Anohium pertinax) Linne complains ^^ terehra-
vit et destruxit scdilia mea^'^' and I can renew the
same complaint against A. striatum, which not only has
destroyed my chairs, but also picture-frames, and
hay perforated in every direction the deal floor of my
chamber, from which it annually emerges through
little round apertures in great numbers. — The utility of
entomological knowledge in economics was strikingly
exemplified, when the great naturalist just mentioned,
at the desire of the king of Sweden, traced out the
cause of the destruction of the oak-timber in the royal
dock-yards; and, having detected the lurking culprit
under the form of a beetle, [Lymexylon navalc, F,,) by
directing the timber to-be immersed during the time of
the metamorphosis of that insect and its season of ovipo-
sition, furnished a remedy which effectually secured it
from its future attacks'^. — No coleopterous insects are
more singular than those that belong to the genus Pcm-
sus, L. ; and one of them at least, remarkable for emit-
ting a phosphoric light from the globes of its antennae,
is also a timber-feeder''. — Amongst the Hijmcnoptcra
there are many insects that injure us in this department.
The species of the genus Sirex, probably all of them in
their larva state, have no appetite but for ligneous food.

^ In Linn. Trans, x. 399. '• Sijst. Nat. 565. 2.

'■ Smith's Introduction to Bolani/, Pref. XV.
•^ Afzelius in Lhin. Trans, iv. 261.

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS, 235

Linne has observed this with respect to S. S^yectnim and
Camehis ; and Mr. Marsham, on the authority of Sir
Joseph Bariks, relates that several specimens of S. Gigas
were seen to come out of the floor of a nursery iii a gen-
tleman's house, to the no small alarm and discomfiture
of both nurse and children^. — The genus Trjjpomjlon,
F., many species of Crahro, F., Vcsjxt Parictuni^ L., La-
treille's genera Xijlocoiia, Chdostoma^ Hcriadcs, Mega-
chile and AntJwpJiova, (all separated from Ajns, L.,) per-
forate posts and rails and other timber, to form cells for
their young ''.

The Linnean order Aptcra furnishes another timber-
eating insect, a kind of wood-louse, though scarcely an
eighth of the size of the common one, [JLimnoyia tere-
brans of Dr. Leach,) which in point of rapidity of exe-
cution seems to surpass all its European brethren, and
in many cases may be productive of more serious injury
than any of them, since it attacks the wood-work of piers
and jetties constructed in salt-water, and so effectually,
as to threaten the rapid destruction of those in which it
has established itself. Li December 1815 I was fa-
voured by Charles Lutwidge, esq. of Hull, with speci-
mens of wood from the piers at Bridlington Quay which
wofully confirm the fears entertained of their total ruin
by the hosts of these pygmy assailants that have made
good a lodgement in them, and which, though not so
big as a grain of rice, ply their masticatory organs with
such assiduity as to have reduced great part of the wood-
work into a state resembling honey-comb. One speci-
men was a portion of a three-inch fir plank nailed to

" L'mn. Tram. x. 403.

•> Kirby, Mon. Ap. Ang. i. 152-194. Latrcillc, (yen. iv, IGl— ,

236 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

the North Pier about three years since, which is now
crumbled away to less than an inch in thickness — in fact,
deducting the space occupied by the cells which cover
both surfaces as closely as possible, barely half an inch
of solid wood is left ; and though its progress is slower
in oak, that wood is equally liable to be attacked by it.
— If this insect were easily introduced to new stations,
it might soon prove as destructive to our jetties as the
Teredo navalis to those of Holland, and induce the ne-
cessity of substituting stone for wood universally, what-
ever the expense : but happily it seems endowed with
very limited powers of migration; for, though it has
spread along both the South and East Piers of Bridling-
ton harbour, it has not yet, as Mr. Lutwidge informs
me, reached the dolphin nor an insulated jetty within
the harbour. — No other remedy against its attacks is
known than that of keeping the wood free from salt-
water for three or four days, in which case it dies ; but
this method it is obvious can be rarely applicable^.

How dear are their books, their cabinets of the va-
rious productions of nature, and their collections of
prints and other works of art and science, to the learned,

=* In order to ascertain how far pure sea water is essential to this
insect, and consequently what danger exists of its being introduced
into the wood-work of our docks and piers communicating with our
salt-water rivers, as at Hull, Liverpool, Bristol, Ipswich, &c., where
it might be far more injurious than even on the coast, I have, since
December 15th 1815, when Mr. Lutwidge was so kind as to furnish
me with a piece of oak full of the insects in a living state, poured a
not very strong solution of common salt over the wood, every other
day, so as to keep the insects constantly wet. On examining it this
day (Feb. 5th 1816) I found them alive ; and, what seems to prove
them in as good health as in their natural habitat, numbers have esta-
blished themselves in a piece of fir-wood which I nailed to the oak, and
have in this short interval, and in winter too, bored many cells in it.

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 237

the scientific, and the virtuosi ! Even these precious
treasures have their insect enemies. The larva of Cram-
bus j)inguinalis, whose ravages in another quarter I have
noticed before^, will establish itself upon the binding of
a book, and spinning a robe, which it covers with its
own excrement'', will do it no little injury. A mite,
[Acarus eruditns, Schrank) eats the paste that fastens the
paper over the edges of the binding, and so loosens it '^.
I have also often observed the caterpillar of another
little moth, of which I have not ascertained the species,
that takes its station in damp old books, between the
leaves, and there commits great ravages ; and many a
black-letter rarity, which in these days of Bibliomania
would have been valued at its weight in gold, has been
snatched by these destroyers from the hands of book-
collectors. The little wood-boring beetles before men-
tioned [Anohium pertinax and striatum) also attack
books, and will even bore through several volumes.
M. Peignot mentions an instance where, in a public li-
brary but little frequented, twenty-seve^i folio volumes
were perforated in a straight line by the same insect,
(probably one of these species,) in such a manner that
on passing a cord through the perfectly round hole
made by it, these twenty-seven volumes could be raised
at once''. The animals last mentioned also destroy
prints and drawings, whether framed, or preserved in
a porte-feuille. Our collections of quadrupeds, birds,
insects and plants have likewise several terrible insect
enemies, which without pity or remorse often destroy

a See p. 226. •> Reaum. iii. 270.

<= Schrank Emm. Ins. Austr. 513. 1058.
'' Home's Inlrod. to Bibliograpki/, i. 311.

238 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

or mutilate our most highly prized specimens. Ptimis
Fur, L. and Byrrhus Musccorum, L., two minute beetles,
are amongst the worst, especially the latter, whose sin-
gular gliding larva, when once it gets amongst them,
makes astonishing havoc, the birds soon shedding their
feathers, and the insects falling to pieces. — One of the
worst plagues of the entomologist are the mites {Acanis
Destructor, Schrank) : these, if his specimens be at all
damp, eat up all the muscular parts, [Lytta vesicatmia
being almost the only insect that is not to their taste^)
and thus entirely destroy them. — If spiders by any
means set amongst them, they will do no little mischief.
— Some I have observed to be devoured by a minute
moth, perhaps Tinea Insectclla, F. ; and in the posterior
thighs of a species of Grijllus, F., from China, I once
found, one in each thigh, a small beetle congenerous
with Tcnehrio pallens, L. that had devoured the interior.
It is, I believe, either Acanis Destructor or eniditus that
eats the gum employed to fasten down dried plants.

There are other insects which do not confine them-
selves to one or two articles, but make a general and
indiscriminate attack upon our dead stock. Ulloa men-
tions one peculiar to Carthagena, called there the conie^
gen, which he describes as a kind of moth or maggot so
minute as to be scarcely visible to the naked eye ^. This
destroys, says he, the furniture of houses, particularly
all kinds of hangings, whether of cloth, linen, or silk,
gold or silver stuffs or lace ; in short, every thing except
solid metal. It will in a single night ruin all the goods
of a warehouse in which it has got footing, reducing bales

* It appears from Humboldt (Personal Narrative, E. T. v. IIG.)
that the destructive insects called h\ this name, arc Termites,

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED r,Y INSECTS. 239

of merchandize to dust without altering their appear-
ance, so that the mischief is not perceived till they
come to be handled^. If we make some deduction from
this account for exaggeration, still the amomit of damage
will be very considerable.

There are three kinds of insects better known, to
whose ravages, as most prominent and celebrated, I.
shall last call your attention. The insects I mean are
the cock-roach [Blatta orientalis^ L.), the house-cricket
{Ac/ieta domcstica, F.), and the various species of wliite
ants {Termes, L.). The last of these, most fortunately
for us, are not yet naturalized.

The cock-roaches hate the light, at least the kind tliat
is most abundant in Britain, (for B. gcnnanica, which
abounds in some houses, is bolder, making its appear-
ance in the day, and running up the walls and over the
tables, to the great annoyance of the inhabitants,) and
never come forth from their hiding-places till the lights
are removed or extinguished. In the London houses,
especially on the ground-floor, they are most abundant,
and consume every thing they can find, flour, bread,
meat, clothes, and even shoes''. As soon as light, na-
tural or artificial, re-appears, they all scamper off as fast
as they can, and vanish in an instant. These pests are
not indigenous here, and perhaps no where in Europe,
but are one of the evils which commerce has imported :
and we may think ourselves well off that others of the
larger species of the genus have not been introduced
in the same way — as, for instance, Blatta gigantca, a
native of Asia, Africa, and America, many times the size
of the common one, — which, not content with devouring

* Ulloa. I. G7. ^ Aniavi, Acad. iii. 345.

210 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS*

meat, clothes and books, even attacks persons in their
sleep, and the extremities of the dead and dpng*.

The house-cricket may perhaps be deemed a still
more annoying insect than the common cock-roach, add-
ing an incessant noise to its ravages ; since, although,
for a short time, it may not be unpleasant to hear

" the cricket chirrup in the hearth,"

SO constant a din every evening must very much inter-
rupt comfort and conversation. These garrulous ani-
mals, which live in a kind of artificial torrid zone, are
very thirsty souls, and are frequently found drowned in
pans of water, milk, broth, and the like. Whatever is
moist, even stockings or linen hung out to dry, is to
them a honne bouche ,- they will eat the scummings of
pots, 3^east, crumbs of bread, and even salt, or any thing
within their reach. Sometimes they are so abundant in
houses as to become absolute pests, flying into the can-
dles and into people's faces.

At Cuddapa, in the ceded districts to the northward
of Mysore, Captain Green was much annoyed by a
jumping insect, which from his description I should take
for the larva of a species of cricket. They were of a dun
colour, and from half to three-fourths of an inch in
length. They aboimded at night, and were very inju-
rious to papers and books, which they both discoloured
and devoured; leather also was eaten by them. Such
was their boldness and avidity, that they attacked the
exposed parts of the body when you were asleep, nib-
bling the ends of the fingers, particularly the skin under
the nails, which was only discoverable by a slight sore-

'* Drury's Insects, iii. Preface.

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 241

ness that succeeded. So great was their agility that
tl)ey could seldom be caught or crushed. They were a
mute insect, but probably the imago would make noise
enough.

But the •white anfs^ wherever they prevail, are a still
worse plague than either of these insects — they are the
great calamity, as Linne terms them, of both the Indies.
When they find their way into houses or warehouses,
nothing less hard than metal or glass escapes their ra^
vages. Their favourite food, however, is wopd of all
kinds, except the teak ( Tedona grandis) and iron-wood
{Sideroxi/lo?i), which are the only sorts known that they
will not touch * ; and so infinite are the multitudes of
the assailants, and such is the excellence of their tools,
that all the timber-work of a spacious apartment is often
destroyed by them in a few nights. Exteriorly, how-
ever, every thing appears as if untouched ; for these
wary depredators, and this is what constitutes the great-
est singularity of their history, carry on all their opera/-
tions by sap and mine, destroying first the inside of solid
substances, and scarcely ever attacking their outside,
until first they have concealed it and their operations
with a coat of clay. A general similarity runs through
the proceedings of the whole tribe ; but the large Afri-

* It is not its hardness that protects the teak, as the Asiatic Ter-
mites attack Lignum Vitae, but probably some essential oil disagree-
able to them with which it is impregnated. This is the more likely,
since they will eat it when it is old and has been long exposed to the
air. Tannin has been conjectured to be the protecting substance, but
erroneously, as leather of every kind is devoured by them, William-
son's Ea^t India Fade Menim, ii. 56. It is its hardness probably
that protects the iron-wood from the African Termites. Smeath
man in Philos. Tram. 1781. 11. 47.
VOL. I. R

242 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

can species, called by Smeathman Termes bellicosiis, is
the^most formidable. These insects live in large clay
nests, fi-om whence they excavate tminels all roundy
often to the extent of several hundred feet ; from these
hey will descend a considerable depth below the foun-
dation of a house, and rise ag'ain through the floors ; or,
boring through the posts and supports of the building,
enter the roof, and construct there their galleries in va-
rious directions. If a post be a convenient path to the
roof, or has any weight to support, which how they dis-
cover is not easily conjectured, they will fill it with their
mortar, leaving only a trackway for themselves; and
thus, as it Were, convert it from wood into stone as
hard as many kinds of free-stone. In this manner they
soon destroy houses, and sometimes even whole villages
when deserted by their inhabitants, so that in two or
three years not a vestige of them will remain.

These insidious insects are not less expeditious in de-
stroying the wainscoting, shelves, and other fixtures of
a house than the house itself. With the most consum-
mate art and skill they eat away all the inside of what
they attack, except a few fibres here and there which
exactly suffice to keep the two sides, or top and bottom,
Connected, so as to retain the appearance of solidity after
the reality is gone ; and all the while they carefully avoid
perforating the surface, unless a book or any other thing
that tempts them should be standing upon it. Kaemp-
fer, speaking of the white ants of Japan, gives a remark-
able instance of the rapidity with which these miners
proceed. Upon rising one morning he observed that
one of their galleries of the thickness of his little finger
had been formed across his table ; and, upon a further

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 243

examination, he found that they had boretl a passage of
that thickness up one foot of the table, formed a gallery
across it, and then pierced down another foot into the
floor : all this was done in the few hours that intervened
between his retiring to rest and his rising^. They make
their way also with the greatest ease into trunks and
boxes, even though made of mahogany, and destroy
papers and every thing they contain, constructing their
galleries and sometimes taking up their abode in them.
Hence, as Humboldt informs us, throughout all the
warmer parts of equinoctial America, where these and
other destructive insects abound, it is infinitely rare to
find papers which go fifty or sixty years back''. In one
night they will devour all the boots and shoes that are
left in their AVay ; cloth, linen, or books are equally to
their taste ; but they will not eat cotton, as Captain Green
informs me. I myself have to deplore that they entirely
consumed a collection of insects made for me by a friend
in India, more especially as it sickened him of the em-
ployment. In a word, scarcely any thing, as I said be-
fore, but metal or stone comes amiss to them. Mr.
Smeathman relates, that a party of them once took a
fancy to a pipe of fine old Madeira, not for the sake of
the wine, almost the whole of which they let out, but of
the staves, which however I suppose were strongly im-
bued with it, and perhaps on that account were not less
to the taste of our epicure Termites. Having left a
compound microscope in a warehouse at Tobago for a
few months, on his return he found that a colony of a
small species of white ant had established themselves in

'. ^ Ja2mn, ii. ] 27. ^ Political Essay on Kcw Spain, \y.\2b.

R 2

244 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BV INSECTS.

it, and had devoured most of the wood-work, leaving
little besides the metal and glasses*. A shorter pe-
riod sufficed for their demolition of some of Mr. Forbes's
furniture. On surveying a room which had been locked
up during an absence of a few weeks, he observed a
number of advanced works in various directions towards
some prints and drawings in English frames ; the glasses
appeared to be uncommonly dull, and the frames covered
with dust. " On attempting," says he, " to wipe it off,
I was astonished to find the glasses fixed to the wall,
not suspended in frames as I left them, but completely
surrounded by an incrustation cemented by the white
ants, who had actually eaten up the deal frames and
back-boards, and the greater part of the paper, and left
the glasses upheld by the incrustation, or covered way,
which they had formed during their depredation^." It
is even asserted that the superb residence of the Go-
vernor-General at Calcutta, which cost the East India
Company such immense sums, is now rapidly going to
decay in consequence of the attacks of these insects •=. —
But not content with the dominions they have acquir-
ed, and the cities they have laid low on Terra Firma,
encouraged by success the white ants have also aimed at
the sovereignty of the ocean, and once had the hardi-
hood to attack even a British ship of the line ; and, in
spite of the efforts of her commander and his valiant
crew, having boarded they got possession of her, and
handled her so roughly, that when brought into port, be-

* This account of the Termites is chiefly taken from Smeathman
in Phihs. Trans. 1781, and Percival's Cet/loji,S07-~.

^ Oriental Memoirs, i. 362. ' Morning Herald, Dec. 31st, 1814.

INDIRECT INJURIES CAUvSED BY INSECTS. 245

ing no longer fit for service, she was obliged to be
broken up".

And here, I think, I see you throw aside my papers,
and hear you exclaim — " Will this enumeration of
scourges, plagues, and torments never be finished ? Was
the whole insect race created merely with punitive views,
and to mar the fair face of universal nature ? Are they all,
as our Saviour said figuratively of one genus, the scor-
pion, the powei'ful agents and instruments of the great
enemy of mankind '' ? " If you view the subject in an-
other light, you will soon, my friend, be convinced that,
instead of this, insects generally answer the most benefi-
cial ends, and promote in various w ays, and in an extra-
ordinary degree, the welfare of man and animals ; and
that the series of evils I have been engaged in enume-
rating mostly occur partially, and where they exceed
their natural limits ; God permitting this occasionally to
take place, not merely with punitive views, but also to
show us what mighty effects he can produce by instru-
ments seemingly the most insignificant : thus calling
upon us to glorify his power, wisdom, and goodness, so
evidently manifested whether he relaxes or draws tight
the reins by which he guides insects in their course, and
regulates their progress ; and more particularly to ac-

* The ship here alluded to was the Albion, which was in such a
condition from the attack of insects, supposed to be white ants, that,
had not the ship been firmly lashed together, it was thought she would
have foundered on her voyage home. — Mr. Kittoe informs me that
the Drogucrs or Dragucrs, a kind of lighter employed in the West
Indies in collecting the sugar, sometimes so swarm with ants, of the
common kind, that they have no other way of getting rid of these
troublesome insects than by sinking the vessel in shallow water.

b Lukcx. 19.

246 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

knowledge his overruling Providence so conspicuously
exhibited by his measuring them, as it were, and weigh-
ing them, and telling them out, so that, their numbers,
forces and powers being annually proportioned to the
work he has prescribed to them, they may neither exceed
his purpose nor fall short of it.

From the picture I have drawn, and I assure you it
is not overcharged, you will be disposed to admit, how-
ever, the empire of insects over the works of creation,
and to own that our prosperity, comfort and happiness
are intimately connected with them ; and consequently
that the knowledge and study of them may be extremely
useful and necessary to promote these desirable ends,
since the knowledge of the cause of any evil is always
a principal, if not an indispensable, step towards a re-
medy.

I shall now bid adieu to this unpromising subject,
which has so long occupied my pen, and I fear wearied
your attention, and in my next bring before you a more
agreeable scene, in which you will behold the benefits wq
receive by the muiistry of insects.

I am, &c.

LETTER IX.

BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

INDIRECT BENEFITS.

jVl Y last letters contained, I must own, a most melancho-
ly though not an overcharged picture of the injuries and
devastation which man, in various ways, experiences
through the instrumentality of the insect world. In this
and the following I hope to place before you a more agree-
able scene, since in them I shall endeavour to point out in
what respects these minute animals are made to benefit u?,
and what advantages we reap from their extensive agency.
God, in all the evil which he permits to take place,
whether spiritual, moral, or natural, has the ultimate good
of his creatures in view. The evil that we suffer is often
a countercheck which restrains us from greater evil, or a
spur to stimulate us to good : we should therefore consi-
der every thing, not according to the present sensations
of pain, or the present loss or injury that it occasions, but
according to its more general, remote, and permanent
effects and bearings ; — whether by it we are not impelled
to the practice of many virtues which otherwise might lie
dormant in us — whether our moral habits are not improv-
ed— whether we are not rendered by it more prudent,
cautious, and wary, more watchful to prevent evil, more
ingenious and skilful to remedy it — and whether our

248 INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSEC'l^.

higher faculties are not brought more into play, and our
mental powers more invigorated, by the meditation and
experiments necessary to secure ourselves. Viewed m
these lights, Avhat was at first regarded as wholly made
up of evil, may be discovered to contain a considerable
proportion of good.

This reasoning is here particularly applicable : and if
the ultimate benefit to man seems in any case problema-
tical, it is merely because to discover it requires more ex-
tended and remote views than we are enabled by our li-
mited faculties to take, and a knowledge of distant or con-
cealed results whicli we are incompetent to calculate or
discover. The common good of this terraqueous globe
requires that all things endowed with vegetable or animal
life should bear certain proportions to each other ; and if
any individual species exceeds that proportion, from be-
neficial it becomes noxious, and interferes with the general
welfare. It was requisite therefore for the benefit of the
whole system that certain means should be provided, by
which this hurtful luxuriance might be checked, and all
things taught to keep within their proper lunits : hence it
became necessary that some should prey upon others, and
a part be sacrificed for the good of the whole.

Of the counterchecks thus provided, none act a more
important part than insects, particularly in the vegetable
kingdom, every plant having its insect enemies. Man,
when he takes any plant from its natural state and makes
it an object of cultivation, must expect that these agents
will follow it into the artificial state in which he has placed
it, and still prey upon it ; and it is his business to exert
his faculties in inventing means to guard against their at-
tacks. It is a wise provision that there sliould exist a race

INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. '249

of beings empowered to remove all her superfluous pro-
ductions from the face of nature ; and in effecting this,
whatever individual injury may arise, insects must be
deemed general benefactors. Even the locusts which lay
waste whole countries clear the way for the renovation of
their vegetable productions, which were in danger of being
destroyed by the exuberance of some individual species,
and thus are fulfilling the great law of the Creator, that of
all which he has made nothing should be lost. A region,
Sparrman tells us, which had been choked up by shrubs,
perennial plants, and hard half-withered and unpalatable
grasses, after being made bare by these scourges, soon ap-
pears in a far more beautiful dress, clothed with new herbs,
superb Ijlies, and fresh annual grasses, and young and
juicy shoots of the perennial kinds, affording delicious
herbage for the wild cattle and game^. And though the
interest of individual man is often sacrificed to the general
good, in many cases the insect pests which he most exe-
crates will be found to be positively beneficial to him, un-
less when suffered to increase beyond their due bounds.
Thus the insects that attack the roots of the grasses,
and, as has been before observed, so materially injure our
herbage, the wire-worm, the larvae of Meloloniha vulgar js^
Tipula oleracea^ &c., in ordinary seasons only devour so
much as is necessary to make room for fresh shoots, and
the production of new herbage ; in this manner maintain-
ing a constant succession of young plants, and causing an
annual though partial renovation of our meadows and
pastures. In the rich fields near Rye in Sussex I parti-
cularly observed this effect ; and I have since at home re-
marked, that at certain times of the year dead plants may
' Sjjarnuaji's f'o'/ogr, i. .Sfi/.

250 INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

be eveiy where observed, pulled up by the cattle as they
feed, whose place is sujjplied by new offsets. So that,
when in moderate numbers, these insects do no more harm
to the grass than would the sliarp-toothed harrows which
it has been sometimes advised to apply to hide-bound pas-
tures, and the beneficial operation of which in loosening
the sub-soil these insect borers closeh' imitate.

Nor would it be difficult to show tliat the ordinary good
effects of some of those insects, which torment ourselves
and our cattle, preponderate over their evil ones. Mr.
Clark is inclined to think that the gentle irritation of
QHstrus Equi is advantageous to the stomach of the horse
rather than the contrary. On the same principle it is not
improbable that the Tabani often act as useful phleboto-
mists to our full-fed animals ; and that the constant motion
in which they are kept in summer by the attacks of the
Stomoxys and other flies, may prevent diseases that would
be bi'ought on by indolence and repletion. And in the
case of man himself, if I do not go so far as with Linne
to give the louse the credit of preserving full-led boys
from coughs, epilepsy, &c., we may safely regard as no
small good, the stimulus which these, and others of the
insect assailants of the persons of the dirty and the vicious,
afford to personal cleanliness and purity.

I might enlarge greatly upon the foregoing view of me
subject : but this is unnecessary, as numerous facts will
occur in subsequent letters which you will readily perceive
have an intimate bearing upon it ; and I shall therefore
proceed to point out the more evident benefits which we
derive from insects, arranging them under the two great
heads of direct benefits, and those which are indirect ;
beginning with the latter.

INDIHECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 251

The insects which are indirectly beneficial to us, may
be considered under three points of view : First, as remov-
ing various nuisances and deformities from the face of
nature : Secondly, as destroying other insects, that but for
their agency would multiply so as greatly to injure and
annoy us : and Thirdly, as supplying food to useful ani-
mals, particularly to fish and birds.

To advert in the ^rst place to the former. All sub-
stances must be regarded as nuisances and deformities,
when considered with relation to the whole, which are de-
prived of the principle of animation. In this relation
stand a dead carcase, a dead tree, or a mass of excre-
ment, which are clearly incumbrances that it is desirable
to have removed ; and the office of effecting this removal
is chiefly assigned to insects, which have been justly call-
ed the great scavengers of nature. Let us consider
their little but effective operations in each of their voca-
tions.

How disgusting to the eye, how offensive to the smell,
would be the whole face of nature^ were the vast quantity
of excrement daily falling to the earth from the various
animals which inhabit it, suifered to remain until gi'a-
dually dissolved by the rain or decomposed by the ele-
ments ! That it does not thus offend us, we are indebted
to an inconceivable host of insects which attack it the
moment it falls ; some immediately beginning to devour
it, others depositing in it eggs from which are soon hatch-
ed larvie that concur in the same office with tenfold vo-
racity : and thus every particle of dung, at least of the
most offensive kinds, speedily swarms with inhabitants
which consume all the liquid and noisome particles, leav-
ing nothing but the undigested remains, tluit soon dry

252 INDIRECT BExVEFITS DEIUVED FROM INSECTS.

aiul are scattered by the winds, while the grass upon
which it rested, no longer smothered by an impenetrable
mass, springs up with increased vigour.

Numerous are the tribes of insects to which this office
is assigned, though chiefly if not entirely selected from
the two orders Coleoptcra and Dipfcra. A large propor-
tion of the genera formed, by different authors, from
ScarabcBus of Linne, viz. Scarabcats, Copris, Ateuckus,
Sis^p/ms, 0?i./iis, Onf//ophaguSy ApJiodim, and Psamvio-
dius ; also Hidcr, SpJueridhim, Y. and amongst the Sta-
phijlinid(V, tlie majority of Staphylini, many Aleochara;^
especially of Gravenhorst's third family, many Oxyteli
and some Omalia, Tacliini and Tachypori^ of that author,
including in the whole many hundred species of beetles
— unite their labours to effect this useful purpose : and
what is remarkable, though they all work their waj' in
these filthy masses, and at first can have no paths, yet
theif bodies are never soiled by the ordure they inhabit.
Many of these insects content themselves with burrowing
in the dung alone; but Ateuclms pilularius^, a species
called in America the Tumble-dung, whose singular ma-
noeuvres I shall subsequently have to advert to, Copris

' The Coprion, Canfh/inis, and HcUocantharus of the ancients was
evidently this beetle, or one ne.irly related to it, which is described
as rolling backwards large masses of dung, and attracted such general
attention as to give rise to the proverb Cantharus jnlidam. It should
seem from the name, derived from a word signifying an ass, that the
Grecian beetle made its pills o^ asses' dung; and this is confirmed by
a passage in one of the plays of Aristophanes, the Irene, where a beetle
of this kind is introduced, on which one of the characters rides to hea-
ven to petition Jupiter for peace. The play begins with one domes-
tic desiring another to feed the Cantharus with some bread, who after-
wards orders his companion to give him another kind of bread mad?
of aancs' dung.

INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 253

lunariSi Geotrupes starorarms and many othei- lamelli-
corn insects, make large cylindrical lioles, often of great
depth, under the lieap, and there deposit their eggs sur-
rounded by a mass of dung in which they have previous-
ly enveloped them ; thus not only dispersing the dung,
but actually burying it at the roots of the adjoining
plants, and by these means contributing considerably to
the fertility of our pastures, supplying the constant
waste by an annual conversance of fresh dung laid at the
very root; by these canals, also, affording a convenient
passage for a portion of it when dissolved to be carried
thither by the rain.

The coleopterous insects found in dung inhabit it in
their perfect as Avell as imperfect states : but this is not
the case with those of the order Diptera, whose larvae
alone find their nutriment in it ; the imago, which would
be suffocated did it attempt to burrow into a material so
soft, only laying its eggs in the mass. These also are
more select in their choice than the Coleoptera — not in-
deed as to delicacy, — but they do not indiscriminately
oviposit in all kinds, some preferring horse-dung, others
swine' s-dung, others cow-dung, which seems the most
favourite pabulum of all the dung-loving insects, and
others that of birds. The most disgusting of all is the
rat-tailed larva that inhabits our privies, which changes
to a fly [Elophihis tenax^ Latr.) somewhat resembling a
bee.

Still more would our olfactory nerves be offended, and
our health liable to fatal injuries, if the wisdom and good-
ness of Providence had not provided for the removal of
another nuisance from our globe — the dead carcases of
animals. M^en these begin to grow putrid, every one

254 INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

knows what dreadful miasmata exhale from them, and
tamt the air we breathe. But no sooner does hfe depart
from the body of any creature, at least of any which from
its size is likely to become a nuisance, than myriads of
different sorts of insects attack it, and in various ways.
First come the Histers and pierce the skin. Next follow
the flesh-flies, some, that no time may be lost, (as Musca
carnaria, &c.) depositing upon it their young already
hatched^; others {M. Ccesar, &c.) covering it with mil-
lions of eggs, whence in a day or two proceed innumerable
devourers. An idea of the dispatch made by these gour-
mands may be gained from the combined consideration
of their numbers, voracity and rapid development. One
female of M. carnaria will give birth to 20,000 young ;
and the larvae of many flesh-flies, as Iledi ascertained, will
in twenty-four hours devour so much food, and grow so
quickl}^, as to increase their weight two hundred fold ! In
five days after being hatched they arrive at their full
growth and size, which is a remarkable instance of the
care of Providence in fitting them for the part they are
destined to act : for if a longer time was required for their
growth, their food would not be a fit aliment for them, or
they would be too long in removing the nuisance it is
given in charge to them to dissipate. Thus we see there
was some ground for Linne's assertion vuider M. vomi-
toria, that three of these flies will devour a dead horse
as quickly as would a lion.

As soon as the various tribes of Muscae have opened

the way, and devoured the softer parts, a whole host of

beetles, Necrophori, Silphcc, Dennestes, Cholevce, and Sta-

jphyliiiidcOf actively second their labours. Wasps and

" Plate XXII. Fig. 4, 5.

INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 255

hornets also come in for their portion of the spoil ; and
even ants, which prowl every where, rival their giant com-
jietitoi's in the quantity consumed by them ; so that in no
very long time, especially in warm climates, the muscular
covering is removed from the skeleton, which is then
cleansed from all remains of it by the little Corynetes ccc-
ridetis and rtificollis, (which last is so hiteresting, as hav-
ing been the means of saving the life of Latreille^,) and
several Nitidula^. Even the horns of animals have an ap-
propriate genus ( Trox) which inhabits them, and feeds
upon their contents. And not only are large animals
thus dis})osed of, even the smallest are not suffered lono-
to annoy us. The burying beetle [Necrophorus Vespillo,
F.) inters the bodies of small animals, such as mice, se-
veral assisting each other in the work ; and those to which
they commit their eggs aflbrd an ample supply of food to
their larvae ^. Ants also in some degree emulate these bu-
rying insects, at least they will carry off the carcases of in-
sects into their nests ; and I once saw some of the horse-
ants dragging away a half-dead snake of about the size
of a goose-quill ''. Some insects will even attack living ani-
mals and make them their prey, thus contributing to kee])

=' See Latr. Gen. i. 275.

^ This property in the carrion insects may be turned to a good ac-
count by the comparative anatomist, who has only to flay the body
of one of the smaller animals, anoint it with honey, and bury it in an
ant-hill ; and in a short time he will obtain a perfect skeleton, denu-
dated of every fibril of muscle, though with the ligaments and carti-
lages untouched.

•^ Gleditsch, Abhcmdlungen, iii. 200.

•^ It is to be observed that in our cold climates, during the winter
months, v/hen excrement and putrescent animal matter are not so
offensive, they are left to the action of the elements, insects being
then torpid.

256 INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM I. Nf SECTS-

them within due limits. The common earth-worm is at-
tacked and devoured by a centipede [Scolopetidra elec-
trica, L.). Mr. Sheppard saw one attack a worm ten
times its own size, roimd which it twisted itself hke a ser-
pent, and which it finally nuistered and devoured.

But insects are not only useful in removing and dissi-
pating dead animal matter; they are also intrusted with a
similar office with respect to the vegetable kingdom.
The interior of rotten trees is inhabited by the larvae of a
particular kind of crane-fly with pectinated antennae
[Ctenophcn-a, Meig.), and other insects, which there find an
appropriate nutriment ; and a similar diet is furnished to
the grubs of the rose-beetle {Cetonia aiirata) by the dead
leaves and stalks usually to be found in an ant's nest.
Staphjlinidie^ Sp/ueridia, and other Coleoptct'ay are always
found under heaps of putrescent vegetables ; and an in-
finite number are to be met with in decomposing fungi,
which seem to be a kind of substance intermediate be-
teen animal and vegetable. The Boleti in particular have
a genus of coleopterous insects appropriated to them*,
and the Lycoperdons another. — Stagnant waters, which
would otherwise exhale putrid miasmata and be often the
cause of fatal disorders, are purified by the innumerable
lanae of gnats. Ephemerae, and other insects which live
in them and abstract from them all the unwholesome part
of their contents. This, Linne says, will easily appear
if any one will make the experiment by filling two vessels
with putrid water, leaving the larvae in one and taking
them out of the other. For then he will soon find the

* Surely Mr. Marsham's name for this genus, Boletaria, is much
more proper than that of Fabricius, Mycetophagux (Agaric-eater),
since these insects seldom eat agarics.

INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 257

water that is full of larvae pure and without any stench,
while that which is deprived of them will continue stink-
ing».

Benefits equally great are rendered by the wood-de-
stroying insects. We indeed, in this country, who find
use for ten times more timber than we produce, could
dispense with their services ; but to estimate them at their
proper value, as affecting the great sj'stem of nature,
we should transport ourselves to tropical climes, or to
those under the temperate zones, where millions of acres
are covered by one interminable forest. How is it that
these untrodden regions, where thousands of their giant
inhabitants fall victims to the slow ravages of time, or the
more sudden operations of lightning and hurricanes,
should yet exhibit none of those scenes of ruin and deso-
lation that might have been expected, but are always
found with the verdant characters of youth and beauty ?
It is to the insect world that this great charge of keeping
the habitations of the Dryads in perpetual freshness has
been committed. A century almost would elapse before
the removal from the face of nature of the mighty ruins
of one of the hard- wooded tropical trees, by the mere in-
fluence of the elements. But how speedy its decomposi-
tion when their operations are assisted by insects ! As
soon as a tree is fallen, one tribe attack its bark ^, which
is often the most indestructible part of it ; and thousands

» (Econ. Nat. Amcen. Ac. ii. 50. Stillingfleet's Tracts, 123.

'' Maupertuis observes, that in Lapland he saw man}' birch-trees
lying on the ground, which had probably been there for a very long
time, with the bark entire, though the wood was decayed. Hence we
may probably infer, that in tliat country there are few or none of
the bark-boring insects.

VOL. I, S

258 INDIRECT BKNEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

ot" orifices into the solid tiiink are bored by others. The
rain thus insinuates itself into every part, and the action
of heat promotes "the decomjwsition. Various fungi now
take possession and assist in the process, which is follow-
ed up by the incessant attacks of other insects, 1,hat feed
only upon wood in an incipient state of decay. And thus
in a few months a mighty ma^s, which seemed inferior in
hardness only to iron, is mouldered into dust, and its
place occupied by younger trees full of life and vigour.
Tlie insects to which this duty is intrusted have been al-
ready mentioned in a former letter (p. 231-2); but none
of them do their business so expeditiously or effectually
as the Termites, which ply themselves in such numbers
and so unremittingly, that Mr. Smeathman assures us
they will in a few weeks destroy and carrj- away the trunks
of large trees, without leaving a particle behind ; and in
places where, two or three-years before, there has been a
populous town, if the inhabitants, as is frequently the case,
have chosen to abandon it, there shall be a very thick
wood, and not the vestige of a post to be seen.

I observed in a former letter, that the devastations of
insects are not the same in every season, their power of
mischief being evident only at certain times, when Provi-
dence, by permitting an unusual increase of their num-
bers, gives them a commission to lay waste any particu-
lar country or district. The great agents in preventing
this increase, and keeping the noxious species within pro-
per limits, are other insects ; and to these I shall now
call j'our attention.

Numerous are tlie tribes upon which this important

INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 259

task devolves, and incalculable are the benefits whicii they
lire the means of bestowing upon us ; for to them we are
indebted, or rather to Providence who created them for
this purpose, that our crops and grain, our cattle, our
fruit- and forest-trees, our pulse and flowers, and even the
verdant covering of the earth, are not totally destroyed.
Of these insects, so friendly to man, some exercise their
destructive agency solely while in the larva state ; others
in the perfect state only ; others in both these states ; and
lastly, others again in all the three states of larva, pupa,
and imago. For order's sake, and to give you a more di-
stinct view of the subject, I shall say something on each
separately.

The first, those which are insectivorous only in their
lai'va state, may be further subdivided into parasites and
imparasites, meaning by the former term those that feed
upon a living insect, and only destroy it when they have
attained their full growth ; and by the latter, those that
prey upon insects already dead, or that kill them in the
act of devouring them.

The imparasitic insect devourers chiefly belong to the
Hymenoptera order ; and though it is in the larva state
that their prowess is exhibited, the task of providing the
prey is usually left to the female, of which each species
for the most part selects a particular kind of insect. Thus
many species of Cerceris and the splendid ChrysidcB feed
upon insects of their own order. One of the latter [Pa-
norpes incarnata, Latr.) commits her eggs to the progeny
of Bembex rostrata : another {Chrysis bidentata) attacks
the young of Vespa spinipes.

Bembex and Mellimis confine themselves to Diptera,
s 2

2()0 IXDinF.CT BEXF.FITS DKIUVl'.l) FROM IXSFCTS.

the Ibniier })reylng upon EhqjJiilus tcnax, Bonthylii, and
the like ^ ; the latter amongst others ridding us of the
troublesome Stomoxys calciticms. One of these last I have
observed stationed on dung watching for flies, which,
when seized, she carried to her burrow.

Vespa spinipes feeds upon certain green apod larvae, of
which the female deposits ten or twelve with each egg.
Ammophila indgaris destroys caterpillars of a larger size;
and it is probable that most of the other Vespoid and
Sphecoid Hymenoptera, viz. Trypoxylon^Philanthus, Lav-
ra, Crabro, &c. assist in this great work.

Pompilus, to which genus probably several species men-
tioned by Reaumur as preying on these insects should be
referred, has it in charge to keep the number of spiders
within due bounds : and some Amnwphilce lend their aid.
One of these last, mentioned by Catesby {Sphcx c<rrulea,
Linn.), has been known to seize a spider eight times
its own weight"^. Another species of this genus, which
is common in the Isle of France, attacks an insect still
tnore difficult, one would think, to turn to its purpose, the
all-devouring Blatta, and is therefore one of the great be-
nefactors to mankind. When this insect perceives a
Blatta ( called there Kakerlac and Cancrelas) it stops im-
mediately : both animals eye each other ; but in an instant
the sand-wasp darts upon its prey, seizes it by the muzzle
^th its strong jaws, and bending its abdomen underneath
it, pierces it with its fatal sting. Sure of its victim, it now
walks or flies away, leaving the poison to work its effect;
but in a short time returns, and, finding it deprived of

'•' Latreille, Observafioua iioirveffes sin- Ics Hymenoptcrex. Annctl. dc
Mus. U. *■ Xaf. Hist. ofCnrnlhw, ii. 105.

INDlREC'l' UENl'FITS DEUIVED FROM INSECTS. 261

power to make resistance, seizes it again by the head, and
drags it away, walking backwards to deposit it in a hole
or chink of a wall'.

Grasshoppers are the prey of another Animophila,
supposed to be the Sphcx j^ensylvanica of Linne, a native
of North America, each of wliich in its larva state de-
vours three of a large green species with whidi its mo-
tlier has provided it''.

From none of the imparasitic insectivorous larvte do
we derive more advantage than from those which devour
the destructive Aphides, whose ravages, as we have seen
above, are more detrimental to us in this island than
those of any other insect. A great variety of species, of
different orders and genera, are employed to keep them
within due limits. There is a beautiful genus of four-
Avinged flies, whose wings resemble the finest lace, and
whose eyes are often as brilliant as burnished metals
{Hemerobhis^ L.), the larva; of which, Reaumur, from their
being insatiable devourers of them, has named the lions
of the Aphides. The singular pedunculated eggs from
wliich these larva? proceed I shall describe when we
come to treat upon the eggs of insects ; the larvae them-
selves are furnished with a pair of long crooked mandi-
bles resembling horns, which terminate in a sharp point,
and like those of the ant-lion are perforated, serving the
insect instead of a mouth ; for through this orifice the
nutriment passes down into the stomach. When amongst
the Aphides, like wolves in a sheep-fold, they make
dreadful havoc : half a minute suffices them to suck the
largest ; and the individuals of one species clothe them-

' Reaum. vi. 28?. St. Pierre's f'oj/c/gc, /-•
^ Bartram in I'/ii/os. Trnn-s. xlvi. li?6.

262 INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

selves, like Hercules, with the spoils of their hapless
victims.

Next in importance to these come the aphidivorous
flies (many species of Sjjrphus, F.), whose grubs are armed
with a singular mandible, furnished like a trident with
three points, with which they transfix their prey. They
may often be seen laid at their ease under a leaf or upon
a twig, environed by such hosts of Aphides, that they
can devour hundreds without changing their station ;
and their silly helpless prey, who are provided with no
means of defence, so far from thinking of escaping, fre-
quently walk over the back of their enemy, and put
themselves in his way. When disposed to feed, he fixes
himself by his tail, and, being blind, gropes about on
every side, as the Cyclops did for Ulysses and his com-
panions, till he touches one, which he immediately trans-
fixes with his trident, elevates into the air, that he may
not be disturbed by its struggles, and soon devours.
The havoc which these grubs make amongst the Aphides
is astonishino;. It was but last week that I observed the
top of every young shoot of the currant-trees in my gar-
den curled up by myriads of these insects. On examin-
ing them this day, not an individual remained ; but be-
neath each leaf are three or four full-fed larvae of aphi-
divorous flies, surrounded with heaps of the skins of the
slain, the trophies of their successful warfare ; and the
young shoots, whose progress had been entirely checked
by the abstraction of sap, are again expanding vigor-
ously.

But even these serviceable insects must yield the palm
to the lady-bird or lady-cow {CoccineUa, L.), the favourite
of our childhood, whichj as well as most of its conge-

INDIRICCT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 26ii

ners, in the larva state feeds entirely on Aphides ^ ; and
the havoc made amongst them may be conceived from
the myriads upon myriads of these little interesting ani-
mals, which are often to be seen in years when the plant-
louse abounds. In 1807 the shore at Brighton and all
the watering-places on the south coast was literally co-
vered with them, to the great surprise and even alarm of
the inhabitants, who were ignorant that their little vi-
sitors were emigrants fi'om the neighbouring hop-grounds,
where in their larva state each had slain his thousands
and tens of thousands of the Aphis, which under the
name of the Fhj so fi'equently blasts the hopes of the
hop-grower. It is fortunate that in most countries the
children have taken these friendly Coccinellae under
their protection. In France they regard them as sacred
to the Virgin, and call them Vaches a Dieii, Betes de la
Vierge, &c. ; and with us, commiseration for the hard
fate of a mother, whose " house is on fire and children
at home," ensures them kind treatment and liberty.
Even the hop-growers are becoming sensible of their
services, and, as I am informed, hire boys to prevent
birds fi'om destroying them. — If we could but discover a
mode of increasing these insects at will, \\q might not
only, as Dr. Darwin has suggested, clear our hot-houses
of Aphides by their means, but render our crops of hops
much more certain than they now are. Even without
this knowledge, nothing is more easy, as I have expe-

* The larvas of some species of Coccinellae feed, according to Prof.
D.Reich, solely on the leaves of plants; as that of C. hicrogh/ph'wa,
which eats the leaves of common heath {Erica vulgarin) after the man-
ner of the larvae of Lcpidoptera. I suspect, however, that there is;
some mistake in this statement. Dcr GeselUrhoft naturf. Fi\ In Ber-
lin Ma^, &c. ui. 391

264- INDiniSCT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

rienced, than to' clear a })laiit or small tree by placing
upon it several larvae of Coccinellae or of aphidivorous
flies collected from less valuable vegetables.

Lastly, to close this list of imparasitic insectivorous
larvae, I may mention those of Latreille's genus Volu-
cella {Syrphus, F.,) so remarkable for their radiated anus,
which live in the nests of humble bees, braving the fiu-y
of their stings and devouring their young ; and the ant-
lion {Mynneleon) and Reaumur's improperly named
worm-lion [Rhagio, F.), whose singular stratagems will
be detailed in a subsequent letter, both of which destroy
great numbers of insects that are so unfortimate as to
fall into their toils.

The parasitic larvae, an extremely numerous tribe,
must next be considered. These, with the exception of
a very few individuals, belong to the order Hymeno-
ptera, and were included by Linne under his vast genus
Ichneumon, so named from the analogy between their
services and those of the Egyptian Ichneumons ( Vivcrra
Ichneumon, L.), the former as destroyers of insects, be-
ing equally important with the latter as devourers of ser-
pents, the eggs of crocodiles, &c.

The habits of the whole of this tribe, which properly
includes a great number of distinct genera, are similar.
They all oviposit in living insects, chiefly while in the
larva state, sometimes while pupae [Ich. Puparum, L.);
and even while in the egg state [Ich, Ovido7itm, L.) ; but
not, as far as is known, in perfect insects. The eggs
thus deposited soon hatch into grubs, which immediately
attack their victim, and in the end ensure its destruction.
The number of eggs committed to cacli individual varies
according to its size, and that of tlie cjrubs -which are to

INDIRECT BENEIITS DEKIVED FROM INSECTS. 265

spring from them ; being in most cases one only, but in
others amounting to some hundreds.

From the observations hitherto made by entomolo-
gists, the great body of the Ichneumon tribe is principally
employed in keeping within their proper limits the infi-
nite host of lepidopterous larvae, destroying, however,
many insects of other orders ; and perhaps if the larvae
of these last fell equally under our observation with those
of the former, we might discover that few exist unin-
fested by their appropriate parasite. Such is the activity
and address of the Ichneumonidt^^ that scarcely any con-
cealment, except perhaps the waters, can secure their
prey from them ; and neither bulk, courage, nor ferocity
avail to terrify tliem from effecting their piupose. They
attack the ruthless spider in his toils : they discover the
retreat of the little bee, that for safety bores deep into
timber ; and though its enemy Ichneumon cannot enter
its cell, by means of her long ovipositor ^ she reaches the
helpless grub, which its parent vainly thought secui'ed
from every foe, and deposits in it an egg, which pro-
duces a larva that destroys it''. In vain does the de-
structive Cecidomijia of the wheat conceal its larvae within
the glumes that so closely cover the grain ; three species
of these minute benefactors of our race, sent in mercy by
Heaven, know liow to introduce their eggs into them,
thus preventing the mischief they would otherwise occa-
sion, and saving mankind from the horrors of famine ^,
In vain also the Cynips by its magic touch produces the
curious excrescences on various trees and plants, called
galls, for the nutriment and defence of its progeny: the

=• Plate XVI, Fig. ]. '• Marsham in Linn, l^ans.m. 26.

•^^ See above, p, 1()!)-1 70.

266 INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED IKOM INSECTS.

parasite species attached to it discovers its secret cham-
ber, pierces its wall however thick, and commits the de-
stroying egg to its offspring. Even the clover-weevil is
not secure within the legmnen of that plant; nor the
wire-worm in the earth, fi'om their ichneumonidan foes.
I have received from the late Mr. Markwick that of the
former, and Mr. Paul has shown me the destroyer of the
latter, which belongs to Latreille's genus Pioctotrupes.
Others are not more secured by the repulsive nature of
the substance they inhabit; for two species at least of
Ichneumon^ know how to oviposit it in stercorarious
larvae without soiling their wings or bodies.

The ichneumonidan parasites are either external or
internal. Thus the species above alluded to, which at-
tacks spiders, does not live within their bodies, but re-
mains on the outside^ ; and the Xoxvao^ IcJmewnoji lutcus,
which adheres by one end to tlie shell of the bulbiferous
egg that produced it, does not enter the caterpillar of
Bombijx villica, the moth upon which it feeds'^. Cut
the great majority of these animals oviposit within the
body of the insect to which they are assigned, from
whence, after having consumed the interior and become
pupae, they emerge in their perfect state. An idea of
the services rendered to us by those Ichneumons which,
prey upon noxious larvae may be formed from the fact,
that out of thirty individuals of the common cabbage
caterpillar (the larvae o^ Papilio Brassiccc) which Reau-
mur put into a glass to feed, twenty-five were fatally
pierced by an Ichneumon (/. globalus'^). And if we

* /. Manducafor, Paiiz. Fn. Germ. 72. 4. ; and another species al-
lied to /. DcbeUcdor, F., whicli I have nametl I. StcrcoraLor.

I' Dc Gecr. ii. 8G3. ' Ibid, 851-5. " K.eaum. ii. 4]5».

INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 267

compare the myriads of caterpillars that often attack our
cabbages and brocoli with the small number of butter-
flies of this species which usually appear, we may con-
jecture that they are commonly destroyed in some such
proportion — a circumstance that will lead us thankfully
to acknowledge the goodness of Providence, which by
providing such a check has prevented the uttej- destruc-
tion of the Brassica genus, including some of our most
esteemed and useful vegetables.

The parasites are not wholly confined to the order
Uymenoptcra : some insects of other orders, though com-
paratively ver}^ few, destro}^ our little enemies in the
same way. Musca Larvarum, and another like it de-
scribed by De Geer, lay their eggs in caterpillars and
other larvae ^ ; and Reaumur describes several other flies
of similar habits''. The order also o^ Strepsiptera, lately
established =, appears to be altogether parasitic; but
with this difference fi'om the Ichneumonidcc^ that these
extraordinary animals are found only upon Uymenoptcra
in their perfect state, and do not appear to destroy the
insects upon which they prey, but probably prevent their
breeding. The species at present known are formed
into two genera, Xenos and Sfi/lops, ^^'hich are confined
to Melitta^ and Vespa^.

The next description of insect destroyers are those
which devour them in their yfrs^f and last states. — No
beetles are more common after the summer is confirmed,
than the species of the genus Cantharis. Preysler in-
forms us that the grub of C. fusca destroys a great many

» De Gcer, i. 19G. vi. 14. 24. ^ Rcaniii. ii. 440-4.

« Linn. Trans, xi. 86. '' Kirby's Mon, Ap. Ang. ii. 110-113,

^ Rossi Fn, Elrusc. Mant.

268 INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

other larvae *, and I have observed the imago devour
these and also Dipt era. — Linne has with justice denomi-
nated the Cicmdclcc the tigers of insects. Tliough de-
corated with brilliant colours, they prey upon the whole
insect race ; their formidable jaws which cross each other
are armed with fearful fangs, showing to what use they
are applicable; and the extreme velocity with which
they can either run or flj', renders hopeless any attempt
to elude their pursuit. Their larva? are also equally
tremendous with the imago, having six eyes, three on
each side, seated on a lateral elevation of the head,
which look like those of spiders, and besides their threat-
ening jaws armed with a strong internal tooth, being
furnished with a pair of spines resembling somewhat the
sting of a scorpion, which stand erect upon the back of
the abdomen, and give them a most ferocious aspect''.
This last apparatus, according to Clairville, serves the
purpose of an anchor for retaining them at any height
in their deep cells'^. Most of the aquatic beetles, at
least the Gyrini and Dytisci, prey upon other insects
both in their first and final state. The larvae of the latter
have long been observed and described under the name
of SquillcB and are remarkable for having their mandi-
bles adapted for suction like those of Hemerobius and
Myrmeleon ; but they are not like them deprived of a
mouth, being able to devour by mastication as well as
by suction. — Another tribe of this order which abounds
in species, the Carahidcc, is universally insectivorous.
One of the most destructive is the grub of a very beauti-
ful species, an English specimen of which would be a

» Preys. Bomisch. InscJd. 59. Gl. " Platk XVII. Fig. Vi.
' EiUom. Ilclvcrt'jiir, ii. 158.

INDIRECT BENliFITSJ DERIVED FROM JXSECTS. 269

great acquisition to your cabinet, it being one of our
rarest insects", I mean C<dosoma Sycophania. This ani-
mal takes up its station in the nests of Bovibyx froces-
sionea and other moths, and sometimes fills itself so full
with these caterpillars, which we cannot handle or even
approach without injury, as to be rendered incapable of
motion and appear ready to burst. Another beautiful
insect of this tribe, Carahus aicralus, known hi France by
the name of Vinaigrie?; is supposed to destroy more
cockchafers than all their other enemies, attacking and
killing the females at the moment of oviposition, and
thus preventing the birth of thousands of young grubs ''.
Lastly come the StapJiylinidce, many of which prey upon
insects as well as on putrescent substances. Mr. Leh-
mann tells us that some of them are very useful in de-
stroying the great enemy of our crops of clover seed,
Apion jlavifemoratum '^.

Amongst the devourers of insects in their perfect state
only, must be ranked a few of the social tribes, ants,
wasps, and hornets. The first-mentioned indefatigable
and industrious creatures kill and carry off great num-
bers of insects of every description to their nests, and
prodigious are their efforts in this work. I have seen an
ant dragging a wild bee many times bigger than itself;
and there was brought to me this very morning while
writing this letter, an Elater quite alive and active, which
three or four ants in spite of its struggles were carrying

* One was taken at Aldeburgh in Suffolk by Dr. Crabbe, the cele-
brated poet ; another by a young lady at Southwold, which is now in
the cabinet of W. J. Hooker, esq. ; and a third by a boy at Norwich,
crawling up a wall, which was purchased of him by S. Wilkin, esq.

*• La.tr. HUL Nat. X. 181.

^' Linn. Tnins. vi. 149. Kirbv, I hid. ix. 42. 23.

270 INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

off. An observing friend of mine^, who was some time
in Antigua, informed me that in that island, a kind of ant
which construct their nests in the roofs of houses, when
they meet with any animal larger than they can carry off"
alive, such as a cockroach, &c., will hold it by the legs
so that it cannot move, till some of them get upon it and
dispatch it, and then with incredible labour carry it up
to their nest. Madam Merian, in her account of the
periodical ants mentioned to you before'', and which is
confirmed by Azara*^, notices their clearing the houses
of cockroaches and similar animals; and the Formica
omnivora is very useful in Ceylon in destroying the for-
mer insect, the larger ant, and the white anf*.

You are not perhaps accustomed to regard wasps and
hornets as of any use to us ; but they certainly destroy an
infinite number of flies and other annoying insects. The
year 1811 was remarkable for the small number of wasps,
though many females a]")peared in the spring, scarcely
any neuters being to be seen in the autumn^ ; and pro-
bably in consequence of this circumstance, flies in many
places were so extremely numerous as to be quite a nui-
sance. Reaumur lias observed that in France the butchers
are very glad to have wasps attend their stalls, for the
sake of their services in driving away the flesh-fly ; and
if we may believe the author qf Hector St. John's Ame-
rican Letters, the farmers in some parts of the United
States are so well aware of their utility in this respect, as
to suspend in their sitting-rooms a hornet's nest, the oc-

» R. Kittoe, Esq. ^ p. 123.

•= Voyag(^,\. I'io. "^ Percival's Ct;j^/ow, 307.

^ Mr. Knight made the same observation in 1806, and supposes
the scarcity of neuters arose from the want of males to impregnate
the females. Philos. Tram. 1807, p. 243.

INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 271

cupants of which pi-ey upon the Hies without molesting
the family.

There are other devourers of insects in their perfect
state, the manners and food of whose larvae we are mi-
acquainted with. St. Pierre speaks of a lady-bird, but
it probably belonged to some other genus, of a fine vio-
let colour, with a head like a ruby, which he saw carry
off a butterfly ^. Linne informs us that Clerus formica-
rius devours Anohium pertinax. A fly related to the
Panorpa communis appears created to instill terror into
the pitiless hearts of the tyrants of our lakes and pools,
— the all-devouring Libellulidce^. The Asili also, which
are always upon the chase, seize insects with their an-
terior legs and suck them with their haustellum. The
cognate genus Dioctria, particularl}^ D. oclandica^ pi'ey
upon Hijmenopteva, by some unknown means instanta-
neously killing the insect they seize. Many species also
of Empis, whose haustellum resembles the beak of a bird,
carry off in it Tipididce and other small T)iptcra -, and
what is remarkable, you can seldom take these insects in
coitu, but the female has a Tipula, some fly, or some-
times beetle, in her mouth. Can this be to deposit her
eggs in, as soon as they are impregnated by the male?
or is it designed for the nuptial feast ? Even Scatopliaga
stercoraria {Musca, L.) and sci/balaria, and probably
many others of the same tribe, feed upon small flies,
though their proboscis does not seem so well adapted for
animal as for vegetable food.

The most unrelenting devourers of insects appear to
be those belonging to my fourth division, which attack

^ St. Pierre, Voi/. 72. >> Lesser, L. i. 263, note.

272 IXDIREC'T BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

them under cvcrjj form. These begm the work of tle-
struction when thev are larvae, and contiiuie it dunnor
the whole of their existence. — The earwig that haunts
every close place in our gardens, and defiles whatever
it enters, probably in some degree makes up for its ra-
vages by diminishing the number of other insects. The
cowardly and cruel Mantis, which runs away from an
ant, will destroy ir abundance helpless flies, using its
anterior tibiae, which with the thigh form a kind of for-
ceps, to seize its prey. The water-scorpions {Nej)a,
Ranatra, and Naucoj-is), whose fore legs are made like
those of the Mantis, the water-boatman {Noto?7ecta\
which always swims upon its back, and the Sigara, all
live by rapine, and prey upon aquatic insects. Some of
this tribe are so savage that they seem to love destruction
for its own sake. One [Nepa cinerea) which was put
into a basin of water with several young tadpoles, killed
them all without attempting to eat one.

Those remarkable genera of the extensive tribe of
bugs (Chnicidcc), which glide over the surface of every
pool with such rapidity, being gifted with the faculty of
walking upon the water, the Hydrometra, Velta, and
Gerris of Latreille, subsist also upon aquatic insects. A
large naimber of the same tribe plunge their rostrum into
the larva} of Lepidoptvra^ and suck the contents of their
bodies ; and Reduvius 2^(^f'S07iattis, which ought on that
account to be encouraged, is particularly fond of the
bed-bug.

But of all the insects that are locomotive and pursue
their prey in every state, none are greater enemies of
their fellow tribes than the LibeUnlidcB, and none are
provided with more powerful and singular instruments

l^^DIRECT BENEFITS DEniVEUkFROM INSfcCTS. 275

of assault. In the larva and pupa states, during which
they live in the water and prey upon aquatic insects,
they are furnished with two pair of strong jaws, covered
by a kind of mask armed with a pair of forceps or claws,
which the animal has the power of pushing from it to
catch any thing at a distance^. When an aquatic insect
passes within its reach, it suddenly darts forth the mask,
opens the forceps, seizes the unfortvniate victim, and
brings it within the action of its jaws.

When they assume the imago state, their habits do
not, like those of the white ants, become more mild and
gentle, but on the contrary are more sanguinary and ra-
pacious than ever; so that the name given to them in
England, " Dragon-flies," seems much more applicable
than "Demoiselles," by which the French distinguish
them. Their motions it is true are light and airy ; their
dress is silky, brilliant and variegated, and trimmed with
the finest lace : — so far the resemblance holds ; but their
purpose, except at the time of love, is always destruction,
in which surely they have no resemblance to the ladies.
I have been much amused by observing the proceed-
ings of a species not uncommon h^re, Anax Imperator of
Dr. Leach. It keeps wheeling round and round, and
backwards and forwards, over a considerable portion of
the pool it frequents. If one of the same species comes in
its way, a battle ensues ; if other species of Libelhdidcc
presume to approach, it drives them away, and it is con-
tinually engaged in catching Phryganeae and other in-
sects (for the species of this tribe all catch their prey
when on the wing, and their large eyes seem given them
to enable them the more readily to do this,) that fly over

» Reaum. vi. 400. t. 36—38. Plate XVI. Fig. 5. a.
VOL. I. T

274 INDIRECT BENEFITS DEUIVED FROM INtJECTS.

the water, pulling oif their wings with great adroitness
and devouring in an instant the contents of the body.
From the number of insects of this tribe which are every
where to be observed, we may conjecture how useful
they must be in preventing too great a multiplication of
the other species of the class to which they belong.

Lastly, under this head, not to dwell upon some other
apterous genera, devourers of insects, as the scoipion and
centipede, Phalangium and Solpuga, must be enume-
rated the whole world of Spiders, extremely numerous
both in species and individuals, which subsist entirely
upon insects, spreading with infinite art and skill their
nets and webs to arrest the flight of the heedless and un-
wary summer tribes that fill the air, which are hourly
caught by thousands in their toils ; one of them [Aranea
13-guttata Rossi), we are told, even attacking the re-
doubted Scorpion*.

So much for the insect benefactors to whom it is given
in charge to keep the animals of their own class within
their proper limits ; and I cannot doubt that you will re-
cognise the goodness of the Great Paj'ent in providing
such an army of counterchecks to the natural tendency
of almost all insects to incalculable increase. But before
I quit this subject I must call your attention to what may
be denominated cannibal insects^ since in spite of those
declaimers who would persuade us that man is the only
animal that preys upon his own species^, a large number

'Thiebaut de Berneaud's Voyage to Elba, p. 31.
'' " Even Tyger fell end sullen Bear

Their likeness and their lineage spare.
Man only mars kind nature's plan,
And turns the fierce pursuit on Man ! "

Scott's Rokeby, canto iii. I.

INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 275

of insects are guilty of the same offence. Reaumur tells
us, that liaving put into a glass vessel twenty caterpillars
of the same species which lie was careful to supply with
their appropriate food, they nevertheless devoured each
other until one only survived ^ ; and De Geer relates se-
veral similar instances ^. The younger larvas of Calosoma
Sycophanta often take advantage of the helpless inacti-
vity into which the gluttony of their maturer comrades has
thrown them, and from mere wantonness it should seem,
when in no need of other food, pierce and devour them. A
ferocity not less savage exists amongst the Mantes. These
insects have their fore legs of a construction not unlike
that of a sabre ; and they can as dexterously cleave their
antagonist in t^\^o, or cut off his head at a stroke, as the
most expert hussar. In this way they often treat each other,
even the sexes fighting with the most savage animosity.
Rosel endeavoured to rear several specimens of M. reli-
giosa, but always failed, the stronger constantly devour-
ing the weaker '^. This ferocious propensity the Chinese
children have, according to Mr. Barrow, employed as a
source of barbarous amusement, selling to their comrades
bamboo cages containhig each a Mantis, which are put
tOii'ether to fiffht. You v/ill think it singular that both
in Europe and Africa these cruel insects have obtained
a character for gentleness of disposition, and even sanc-
tity. This has arisen from the upright or sitting posi-
tion, with the fore legs bent, assumed in watching for
their prey, which the vulgar have supposed to be a pray-
ing posture, and hence adopted the belief that a child or
traveller that had lost his road would be guided by tak-

* Reaumur, ii. 413. •> De Oeer, i. 533. iii. 361. v. 400. vi. 91.

•^^ Rdsel, iv. 96.

T 2

276 INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

ing one of these pious insects in his hands and observing
what way it pointed. Mantis fmista, though not as some
suppose worshiped by the Hottentots, is yet greatly es-
teemed by them, and they regard the person upon whom
it ahghts as highly fortunate^. A similar unnatural fe-
rocity is exhibited by Acheta campest7-is, of which having
put the sexes into a box, I found on examining them
that the female had begun to make her meal off her com-
panion.— The malign aspect of the scorpion leads us to
expect from it unnatural cruelty, and its manners fulfill
this expectation. Maupertuis put a hundred scorpions
together, and a general and murderous battle immedi-
ately began. Almost all were massacred in the space of
a few days without distinction of age or sex, and de-
voured by the survivors. He informs us also that they
often devour their own offspring as soon as they are
born''. Spiders are equally ferocious in their habits,
fighting sanguinary battles, which sometimes end in the
death of both combatants ; and the females do not yield
to the Mantes in their unnatural cruelty to their mates.
Woe be to the male spider that after an union does not
with all speed make his escape from the fangs of his part-
ner ! Nay, De Geer saw one that, in the midst of his
preparatory caresses, was seized by the object of his at-
tentions, enveloped by her in a web, and then devoured —
a sight which, he observes, filled him with horror and
indignation '^,

Such are the benefits which we derive from the insects
that keep each other in check. Here they are tlie de-

^ Thunberg's Travels, ii. (i6, ^ De Geer, vii. 335.

« De Geer, vii. 180.

INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 277

stroycrs to which we are chiefly indebted : but we are in
another point of view under nearly equal obligations to
the destroyed ; for they are insects, either wholly or in
part, that form the food of some of our most esteemed
fishes, and of birds that are not more valuable to us as
articles for the table, than as the songsters that enliven
our groves. But before proceeding to the details which
this view of the subject involves, I ought not to omit
pointing out to you tliat many quadrupeds, which though
not all of direct utility to us are doubtless of importance
in the scale of being, derive a considerable part of their
subsistence from insects.

The harmless hedgehog and the mole, to begin at the
lower end of the series, are both said to be insectivorous * ;
the latter devouring large quantities of the wire-worms.
The greedy swine will root up whole acres in search of
the grubs of cockchafers, of which they are very fond ;
and perhaps the good they do is greater than the harm,
if their attack be confined to grass that having been un-
xlermined by these grubs would soon die : they also dig
up the larv£e of the destructive Tettigonia septendecim,
called the American locust^, on w^iich, when in their
perfect state, the squirrels are said to grow faf^. The
badger, Lesser informs us, will eat beetles; and its kins-
man the bear has the character of being very fond of ants
and of honey; which last is also said to be a favourite arti-
cle with the fox, who has sometimes the audacity to over-
turn bee-hives, and even to attack wasps' nests in search
of it. He will also eat beetles.

Sparrman has given an amusing account of the honey-

" Bingley, ii. 374. " Ibid. iii. 27.

'■ CoUinhOJi in'iV»7c>6-. Trans, 1/63.

278 INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

ratel, [Viverra mellivora,) which has a particular instinct
enabhng it to discover bees, and attack them in their en-
trenchments. Near sun-set the ratel will sit and hold
one of his paws before his eyes, in order to get a distinct
view of the object of his pursuit ; and when, in conse-
quence of his peering about in this manner, he sees any
bees flying, he knows that at this time of the day they
are making for their habitations, whither he follows them,
and so attains his end^*. Another species of Viverra
( V.prehensilis) is also reputed to be an eager insect-hunter.
The young armadillos feed on a species of locust; but no
quadruped can with more propriety be called insectivo-
rous than the ant-eaters [Myrmecovhaga), which, as their
name imports, live upon ants. The great ant-eater,
when he comes to an ant-hill, scratches it up with his
long claws, and then unfolds his slender worm-like
tongue, (which is more than two feet long, and wet with
saliva,) and when covered with ants draws it back into
his mouth and swallows thousands of them alive, renew-
ing the operation till no more are to be found. He also
clunbs trees in search of wood-lice and wild honey. Bats,
as every one knows, are always flitting about in summer
evenings, hawking for insects : and the Lemur and mon-
keys will also eat them.

Insects likewise afford a favourite kind of food to many
reptiles: the tortoise; frogs and toads; and lizards too
of different kinds. St. Pierre mentions a small and very
handsome species in the island of Mauritius, that pur-
sues them into the houses, climbs up the walls, and even
walks over glass, watching with great patience for an op-

* Sparritian, ii. ISO.

INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 279

portunity of catching them '. The common snake also
is said to receive part of its nutriment from them.

But to revert to insects as indirectly advantageous to
us, by furnishing food to fishes and birds, beginning with
the former.

Our rivers abound with Jisk of various kinds, which at
particular seasons derive a principal part of their food
from insects, as the numerous species of the salmon and
carp genus. These chiefly prey upon the various kinds
of Phryganeae, in their larva state called case- or caddis-
worms; and in their imago may-flies (though this last
denomination properly belongs only to the Sialis lutaria^
which generally appears in that month,) and Ephemerae.
Besides these, the waters swarm with insects of every or-
der, as numerous in proportion to the space they inhabit,
as those that fill the air, which form the sole nutriment
of multitudes of our fish, and the partial support of al-
most all.

Reaumur has given us a very entertaining account
of the infinite hosts of Ephemerae that by myriads of mil-
lions emerge at a certain season of the year from some
of the rivers in France, which, as it is well worth your
attention, I shall abridge for you.

These insects in their first and intermediate state are
aquatic : they either live in holes in the banks of rivers
or brooks below the water, so that it enters into their ha-
bitations, which they seldom quit ; or they swim about
and walk upon the bed of the stream, or conceal them-
selves under stones or upon pieces of stick. Though their
life, when they assume the perfect state, is usually ex-

• St. Pierre, Voif. 73.

280 INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

tremely short, some being disclosed after sun-set, laying
their eggs and dying before sun-rise; and many not liv-
ing more than three hours ; yet in their preparatory^tate
their existence is much longer, in some one, in others
two, in others even three years.

The different species assume the imago at different
times of the year; but die same species appear regularly
at nearly the same period annually, and for a certain
number of days fill the air in the neighbourhood of the
rivers, emersino; also from the water at a certain hour of
the day. Those which Swammerdam observed, began
to fly about six o'clock in the evening, or about two hours
before sun-set; but the great body of those noticed by
Reaumur did not appear till after that time ; so that the
season of different harvests is not better known to the
farmer, than that in which the Ephemerae of a particular
river are to emerge, is to tlie fishermen. Yet a greater
degree of heat or cold, the rise or fall of the water, and
other circumstances we are not aware of, may accelerate
or retard their appearance. Between the IQth and 15th
of August is the time when those of the Seine andMarne,
which Reaumur described, are expected by the fisher-
men, who call tljem manna : and when their season is
come, they say " the manna begins to appear, the manna
fell abmidantly such a night;" — alluding, by diis expres-
sion, either to the astonishing quantity of food which the
Ephemerae afford the fish, or to the large quantity of fish
which they then take,

Reaumur first observed these insects in the year 1738,
when they did not begin to show themselves in numbers
till the 18th of August. On the 19th, having received
jiotice from his fisherman that the flies had appeared, he

INDlREfcT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM IKSECTS. 281

got into his boat about three hours before sun-set, and
detached from the banks of the river several masses of
arth filled with pupa?, which he put into a large tub full
of water. This tub, after staying in the boat till about
eight o'clock, without seeing any remarkable number of
the flies, and being threatened with a storm, he caused
to be landed and placed in his garden, at the foot of
which ran the Marne. Before the people had landed it,
an astonishing number of Ephemerae emerged from It,
Every piece of earth that was above tlie surface of the
water was covered by them, some beginning to quit their
slough, others prepared to fly, and others already on the
wing ; and every where under the water they were to be
seen in a greater or less degree of forwardness. The
storm coming on, he was obliged to quit the amusing
scene; but when the rain ceased to fall he returned to it.
As soon as the cloth with which he had ordered the tub
to be covered was removed, the number of flies appeared
to be greatly augmented, and kept continually increasing:
many flew away, but more were drowned. Those al-
ready transformed, and continually transforming, would
have been sufiicient of themselves to have made the tub
seem full ; but their number was soon very mucli en^
larged by others attracted by the liglit. To prevent their
being drowned, he caused the tub to be again covered
with the cloth, and over it he held the light, which was
soon concealed by a layer of these flies, that might have
been taken by liandfuUs from the candlestick.

But the scene round the tub was nothing to be com-
pared with the wonderful spectacle exhibited on the
banks of the river. The exclamations of his gardener
^Irew the illustrious naturalist thither: and such a siijht

282 INDIIUXT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

he had never witnessed, and could scarcely find words
to describe. " The myriads of Ephemerae," says he,
" which filled the air oA-er the current of the river, and
over the bank on which I stood, are neither to be ex-
pressed nor conceived. When the snow falls with the
largest flakes, and with the least interval between them,
the air is not so full of tliem as that which surrounded
us was of Ephemerge. Scarcely had I remained in one
place a few minutes, when the step on wliich I stood was
quite concealed with a layer of tliem from two to four
inches in depth. Near the lowest step a surface of wa-
ter of five or six feet dimensions every way was entirely
and thickly cohered by tlicm: and v/hat the current car-
ried off was contir.uaily replaced. Many times I was
obliged to abandon my station, not being able to bear
the shower of Ephemerae, which, falling with an obliquity
less constant than that of an ordinary shower, struck
continually, and in a manner extremely uncomfortable,
every part of my face: — eyes, mouth and nostrils were
filled v, iih them." To hold the flambeau on this occa-
sion was no pleasant office. The person who filled it
had his clotlies covered in a few moments Avith these flies,
Avhich came from all parts to overAvhelm him. — Before
ten o'clock this interesting spectacle had A^anished. It
was rencAved for some nights afterwards, but the flies
were never in such prodigious numbers. The fisher-
men allow only three successive days for the great fall
of the mauna: but a few flies appear both before and af-
ter, their ninnber iiicreasing in one case, in the other di-
minishing. Whatever be the temperature of the atmo-
sphere, Avheiher it l)c cold or hot, these flies invariably
trppear at the same liour in llic evening, that is, between

INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 283

a quarter and half-past eight : towards nine they begin
to fill the air ; in the tbllowhig half-hour they are in the
greatest numbers ; and at ten there are scarcely any to
be seen. So that in less than two hours this infinite host
of flies emerge from their parent stream, fill the air, pei-
form their appointed work, and vanish. A very large
proportion of them falls into the river, when the fish have
their oTand festival and the fishermen a good harvest^.

Under this head I may observe how much the patient
an^-ler is indebted to insects for some of his choicest
baits, for the best opportunities of showing his skill, and
for the most gratifying part of his diversion. The case-
worm and several other larvae are tiie best standing bait
for many fish. The larva of the Ephemera, there called
bait and bank-bait'', is nmch used in some parts of Hol-
land. The case-worms, and grubs (I suppose of flies)
from the tallow-chandlers are in request with us for
roach and dace ; and I am told by an acute observer of
these things, the Rev. R. Sheppard, that the larger Sca-
rabasi and Melolonthas are good baits for chub*^. But
to be an adept in fly-fishing, which requires the most
skill and furnishes the best diversion, the angler ought
to be conversant in Entomology, at least sufficiently so
to distinguish the different species of Phryganea, and to
know the time of their appearance. — The angler is not

=• Reaum. vi. 479-487.

>> Swamm. Bih. Nat. i. c. 4. 100. b.

*= In Col. Venable's Experienced Angler, a vast number of insects
are enuniei'ated as good baits for fish, under the names of Bob, Cad-
bait, Cn?ilcers, Caterpillars, Palmers, Gentles, Bnrk-ivorms, Oa/i-icorms,
Cole wort-worms, Flag-ivorms, Green-flics, Ant flies. Butterflies. Wasps,
Hornets, Bees, Humble-bees, Grasshoppers, Dors, Beetles, a great
brown fly that lives upon the oak like a Scarabee—{Mclolonlha vul-
garis or solstitialis ?) m\A flies (/. e. may-iiics) of various sorts.

284- INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

only indebted to insects for some of his best baits, but
also for the best material to fasten his hooks to, and even
for makino; his lines for smaller fish — the Indian grass or
gut as it is called, (termed in France C/icvetix de Florejice,)
which is said to be prepared in China from the matter con-
tained in the silk reservoirs of the silk-worm, but accord-
ing to Latreille is the silk vessel itself when dried*.

One of the most important ends for which insects were
gifted with such powers of multiplication, giving birth to
myriads of myriads of individuals, was to furnish the fea-
thered part of the creation with a sufficient supply of
food. The number of birds that derive the whole or a
principal part of their subsistence from insects is, as is
universally known, very great, and includes species of
almost every order.

Amongst the Accipitrcs the kestril (Falco Tinnuncu~
his, L.) devours abundance of insects. A friend of mine,
upon opening one found its stomach full of the remains
of grasshoppers and beetles, particularly the former,
which he suspects constitute great part of the food of
this species. One of the shrikes, also, or butcher-birds
{^Lanius Collurio) — and it is probable that other species
of this numerous genus may have the same habits — is
known to feed upon insects, which it first impales alive
on the thorns of the sloe and other spinous plants, and
then devours. If meat be given it, when kept in a cage,
it will fix it upon the wires before it eats it. Lanius Ex'-
cuhitor also impales insects, but Heckewelder denies that
it feeds upon them. If he be correct, the object of this

" Anderson's Recreations in Agyicidt. ($c., iv. 478. Latr. Hist. Nat.
xi .. 154.

INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 285

singular procedure with that species, may be to allure
the birds, which it preys upon, to a particular spot*.

Amongst the Piece or Pies the Crotophaga, called the
Ani, which is a native of Africa and America, lives upon
the locust and Acarus I'icifius, which it picks in great num-
bers from the backs of cattle ; but none are greater de-
vourers of insects in this order than rooks. It is for the
grubs of Melolontha, Tipula, &c., that they follow the
plough ; and they always frequent the meadows in which
these larvae abound, destroying them in vast numbers.
Kalm tells us, that when the little crow was extirpated
from Virginia at an enormous expense, the inhabitants
would willingly have brought them back again at double
the price ^. The icteric oriole is kept by the Americans
in their houses for the sake of clearing them of insects ;
and the purple grackle is so useful in this respect, that
when, on account of their consuming grain, the Ameri-
can farmers in New England offered a reward of three-
pence a head for them, and they were in consequence

* According to Mr. Heckewelcler ( T'rr/Hs. Am. Phil. Sac. iv. 124.)
L. Ex'cuhUor, called in America the nine-killer, from an idea that it
transfixes nine individuals daily, treats in this manner Grasskop2]ers
only ; while L. Collurio would seem to restrict itself chiefly to Sccn-a-
bcBi, two of which Mr. Sheppard once observed transfixed in a hedge
that he knew to be the residence of this bird. Kugellan even thinks
that it impales only S. vernalis, which he has often found transfixed,
but never S. stey-corarius. (Schneid. Mag. 259.) I must remark,
however, that I last summer observed two humble-bees quite alive,
impaled on the thorns of a hedge near my house, which had most pro-
bably been so placed by this species, L. Exciibitor being rarely found
except in mountainous wilds, (Bewick's Birds, i. 61.) And Prof.
Sander states that on opening this bird {L. Collurio) he has sometimes
found in its stomach nothing but grasshoppers, and at others small
beetles and other insects, Naturforscher Stk. xviii. 234.

^ Stillingfl. Tracts, 175, Linn. Trans, v. 105. note b.

286 INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

nearly extirpated, insects increased to such a degree as
to cause a total loss of the herbage, and the inhabitants
were obliged to obtain hay for their cattle not only from
Pennsylvania but even from Great Britain^. Of tliis
order also is the bee-cuckoo [Cuculus Indicator) so cele-
brated for its instinct, by which it serves as a guide to
the wild bees' nests in Africa. Sparrman describes this
bird, which is somewhat larger than a common sparrow,
as giving this information in a singular manner. In the
evening and morning, which are its meal-tunes, it ex-
cites the attention of the Hottentots, colonists, and ho-
ney-ratel, by the cry of cherr, chcrr, cherr, and conducts
them to the tree or spot in which the bees' nest is con-
cealed, continually repeating this cry. V/hen arrived
at the spot, it jiovers over it, and then alighting on some
neighbouring tree or bush, sits in silence, expecting to
come in for its share of the spoil, which is that part of the
comb containing the brood''. — The wryneck and the
woodpeckers, the nut-hatch and tree-creeper, live en-
tirely upon insects which they pick out of decayed trees
and out of the bark of living ones. The former also
frequents grass-plats and ant-hills, into v/hich it darts
its long flexible tongue and so draws out its prey.
The woodpecker also draws insects out of their holes by
means of the sauie organ, which for this purpose is bony
at the end and barbed, and furnished with a curious ap-
paratus of muscles to enable them to throw it forwards
with great force. Some species spit the insects on their
tongue, and thus bring them into their moutii. In
America, the tree-creeper is furnished with a box at the
end of a long pole to entice it to build in gardens, which
» Bingley, ii. 387-290. " Sparrman, ii. 186,

INDIHECT BENEFITS DERIVED FIIOM INSECTS. 287

it is found to be particularly useful iu clearing from
naxious insects.

Amonffst the Grallrc or Waders, many of the lono;-
billed birds eat the larvae of insects as well as worms :
and they form also no inconsiderable part of the food of
our domestic poultry, especially turkeys, vshich may be
daily seen busily engaged in hunting for them, and, as
well as ducks, will greedily devour the larger insects, as
MelolonthfE, and in North America Tettjoonia?. Mr.
Sheppard was much amused one day in .Taly last year
with observing a cow which had taken refuge in a pond,
probably from the gad-fly, and was standing nearly uo
to its belly in water. A fleet of ducks surrounded it,
which kept continually jumping at the flies that alighted
upon it. The cov/, as if sensible of tlie service they
were i-endering her, stood perfectly still thougli assailed
and pecked on all sides by them. The partridge takes
her young brood to an ant-hill, where they feast upon
the larvj£ and pupae, which Swammerdam informs us
were sold at market in his time to feed various kinds of
birds*. Dr. Clarke also mentions having seen them, as
well as the ants themselves, exposed to sale in the market
at Moscow as a food for nightingales''. Latreille tells.
us that singing birds are fed in France with the larvse of
Formica rufa.

But the Linnean order of Passeres affords the greatest
number of insectivorous birds ; indeed almost ail the species
of this order, except perhaps the Columbse and the cross-
bill, and other Loxiae, more or less eat insects. Amongst
the thrush tribe, the blackbird, though he will have his
share of our gooseberries and currants, assists greatly in
« Bih. Nat. i. 126. b. •> Traveh, i. 110.

288 INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

clearing our gardens of caterpillars ; and the locust-eat*
ing thrush is still more useful in the countries subject to
that dreadful pest : these birds never appear but with the
locusts, and then accompany them in astonishing num-
bers, preying upon them in their larva state. The com-
mon sparrow, though proscribed as a most mischievous
bird, destroys a vast number of insects. Bradley has
calculated that a single pair having }'Oung to maintain,
will destroy ^360 caterpillars in a week*. They also
prey upon butterflies and other winged insects. The fly-
catchers [Miisciccqxi) and the warblers (^Motacilla\ which
include our sweetest songsters, are almost entirely sup-
ported by insects ; so that were it not for these despised
creatures we should be deprived of some of our greatest
pleasures, and half the interest and delight of our vernal
walks would be done a^^'ay, Our groves would no longer
be vocal ; our little domestic favourites the red-breast and
the wren would desert us ; and the heavens would be depo-
pulated.— We should lose too some of the most esteemed
dainties of our tables, one of which, the wheat-ear, is said
to be attracted to our downs by a particular insect^. Lastly,
insects are the sole food of swallows, which are always on
the wing hawking for them, and their flight is regulated by
that of their prey. When the atmosphere is dry and clear
and their small game flies high, they seek the skies ; when
moist and the insects are low or upon the ground, they
descend and just skim the surface of the earth and waters ;
and thus by their flight are regarded as prognosticating
fair or wet weather. I was last summer much interested
and amused by observing the tender care and assiduity
with which an old swallow supplied her young with this
" Reaum. ii. 408. ^> Bingley, ii. 374.

INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 289

kind of food. My attention was called to a young brood,
that having left their nest before they were strong enough
to take wing, were stationed on the lead which covers a
bow window in my house. The mother was perpetually
going and returning, putting an insect into the mouth first
of one and then of the others in succession, all flutterino-
and opening their mouths to receive her gift. She was
scarcely ever more than a minute away, and continued
her excursions as long as we had time to observe her.
When the little ones were satisfied, they put their head
under their wing and went to sleep. The number of in-
sects caught by this tribe is inconceivable. But it is not
in summer only that birds derive their food from the in-
sect tribes : even in winter the pupa? of Lepidopfera^ as
Mr. White tells us, are the grand support of those that
have a soft bill'.

I shall close my list of the indirect benefits derived
from insects, by adverting to the very singular apparent
subserviency of some of them to the functions of certain
vegetables.

You well know that some plants are gifted with the fa-
culty of catching flies. These vegetable Muscicapa>,
which have been enumerated by Dr. Barton of Philadel-
phia, who has lately published an ingenious paper on the
subject'', may be divided into three classes : First, those
that entrap insects by the irritability of their stamina,
which close upon them when touched. Under this head
come Apocynum androscemifolium^ Asclepias syriaca and
curassavica, Nerium Olea7ide)\ and a grass described by
Michaux under the name of Lcersia lentiadaris. The

^ Wliito's Sclbornc. 100. ^ P/ilU. Alftg. xxxix. 107,

VOL. I. U

290 INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

second class includes those which entrap them by some
viscosity of the plant, as many species of Rhododendron,
Kalmia, Robinia, Silene, Lythnim, Populns balsamifera,
&c. '^ And under the third class will arrange those which
ensnare by their leaves, whether from some irritability in
them, as in Dioncca^ Drosera, &c., or merely from their
forming hollow vessels containing water, into which the
flies are enticed either by their carrion-like odour, or the
sweet fluid which many of them secrete near the faux,
as in Sarracenia, Nepejithes, Aqiia7'iufn, &c., the tubular
leaves of which are usually found stored with putrefying
insects. In this last class may be placed the common JDi-
psacus of this country, the connate leaves of which form a
kind of basin round the stem, that retains rain-water in
which many insects are drowned. To these a fourth class
might be added, consisting of those plants whose flowers
smelling like carrion (Stapelia hirsiita, &c.) entice flies to
lay their eggs upon them, which thus perish.

The number of insects thus destroyed is prodigious.
It is scarcely possible to find a flower of the Muscicapce
Asclepiadece that has not entrapped its victim, and some
of them in the United States closely cover hundreds of
acres together.

What may be the precise use of this faculty is not so
apparent. Dr. Barton doubts whether the flowers that
catch insects, being only temporary organs, can derive

•= Small flies are sometimes found sticking to the glutinous stigma
of some of the Orchideae like birds on a limed twig : (Sprengel E7it-
decktes Geheimniss, 21 — )and ants are not imfrequently detained in
the milky juice which the touch of even their light feet causes to
exude from the calyxes of the common garden lettuce. Ann. of Bot.
ii. 590.

INDIRECT BENEPITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 291

any nutriment from them ; and he does not think it pro-
• bable that the leaves of Dionaea, &c., which are usually
found in rich boggy soil, can have any need of additional
stimulus. As nothing however is made in vain, there can
be little doubt that these ensnared insects are subservient
to some important purpose in the economy of the plants
which are endowed with the faculty of taking them, though
we may be ignorant what that purpose is ; and an expe-
riment of Mr, Knight's, nurseryman in King's Road,
London, seems to prove that in the case of Dioneea, at
least, the very end in view, contrary to Dr. Barton's sup-
position, is the supplying the leaves with animal manure ;
for he found that a plant upon whose leaves he laid fine
filaments of raw beef, was much more luxuriant in its
growth than others not so treated^. Possibly the air
evolved from the putrefying insects with which Sarracenia
"pw^urea is sometimes so filled as to scent the atmosphere
round it, may be in a similar manner favourable to its ve-
getation.

Most of the insects which are found in the tubular
leaves of this and similar plants enter into them volun-
tarily ; but Sir James Smith mentions a curious fact, from
which it appears that in some cases they are deposited by
other species. One of the gardeners of the Liverpool
Botanic Garden observed an insect, from the description
one of the SphegiadcB {Siohex, L.), which dragged several
large flies to the Sarracenia adunca, and, having with some
difficulty forced them under the lid or cover of its leaf, de-
posited them in its tubular part which was half filled with
water: and on examination all the leaves were found

* Elements of the Science of Botany, 62.
u 2

292 INDIRECT HENF.FITS DERIVED FROM" INSECTS.

crowded widi dead or drowning flies ^. What was the
object of this singular manoeuvre does not seem very ob-
vious. At the first glance one might suppose that, hav-
ing deposited an egg in the fly, it intended to avail itself
of the tube of the leaf instead of a burrow. Yet we know
of no such strange deviation from natural instinct, which
would be the more remarkable because the insect was
European, while the plant was American and growing in
a hot-house. And at any rate it does not seem very like-
ly that the insect would commit her egg to the tube with-
out having previously examined it; in which case she
must have discovered it to be half full of water, and con-
sequently unfit for her purpose. — It is not so wonderful
that many large flies should, as Professor Barton informs
us, drop their eggs into the Ascidia furnished with dead
carcases : and it seems very probable that Dytisci oviposit
in them ; for the Squilla which Rumphius found there
was probably one of their larvae, this being the old name
for them^.

However problematical the agency of insects caught by
plants as to their nutriment, there can be no doubt that
many species perform an important function with regard
to their impregnation, which indeed without their aid
would in some cases never take place at all. Thus, for
the due fertilization of the common Barberry [Berheris
vulgaris) it is necessaiy that the irritable stamens should
be brought into contact with the pistil by the application of
some stimulus to the base of the filament ; but this would
never take place were not insects attracted by the mellife-
rous glands of the flower to insinuate themselves amongst
the filaments, and thus, while seeking their own food, un-

'■'' Smith's Till rod iicliim to Bolmu,. 19."). '^ Mouffet, 319:

INDIIIECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 293

knowingly fulfill the intentions of nature in another de-
partment*.

The agency of these little operators is not less indis-
pensable in the beautiful tribe odris. In these, as appears
from the observations of Kolreuter, the true stigma is si-
tuated on the upper side of a transverse membrane {air us
emincns of Haller) which is stretched across the middle of
the under surface of the petal-like expansion or style-flag,
the whole of which has been often improperly regarded as
fulfilling the office of a stigma. Now as the anther is situ-
ated at the base of the style-flag which covers it, at a con-
siderable distance from the stigma, and at the same time
cut off from all access to it, by the intervening barrier
formed by the arcus eminens^ it is clear that but for some ex-
traneous agency the pollen could never possibly arrive at
the place of its destination. In this case the humhle-bee is
the operator. Led by instinct, or, as the ingenious Sprengel
supposes, by one of those honey marks [Saftmaal) or spots
of a different colour from the rest of the corolla, which, ac-
cording to him, are placed in many flowers expressly to
guide insects to the nectaries, she pushes herself between
the stiff" style-flag and elastic petal, which last, while she
is in the interior, presses her close to the anther, and thus
causes her to brush off* the pollen with her hairy back,
which ultimately, though not at once, conveys it to the
stigma. Having exhausted the nectar she retreats back-
wards ; and in doing this, is indeed pressed by the petal to
the arcus eminejis ; but it is only to its lower or negative
surface, which cannot influence impregnation. She now
takes her way to the second petal, and insinuating her-
self under its style-flag, her back comes into close contact
^ Smith's Trutiif, 1G.>. Kolreuter^ Ann, nf Bui. ii. 9.

29'i' INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

with the true stigma, which is thus impregnated with the
pollen of the first visited anther : and in this manner mi-
grating from one part of the corolla to another, and from
flower to flower, she fructifies one with pollen gathered
m her search after honey in another. — Mr. Sprengel
found, that not only are insects indispensable in fructify-
ing the different species of Iris, but that some of them, as
/. Xij)hmm, require the agency of the larger humble-bees,
which alone are strong enough to force their way beneath
the style-flag : and hence, as these insects are not so com-
mon as many others, this Iris is often barren, or bears im-
perfect seeds ^.

Aristolochia Clematitis^ according to Professor Willde-
now, is so formed, that the anthers of themselves cannot
impregnate the stigma ; but this important affair is devol-
ved upon a particular species of Tipula ( T. pennicornis).
The throat of the flower is lined with dense hair, pointing
downward so as to form a kind of funnel or entrance like
that of some kinds of mouse-traps, through which the in-
sects may easily enter but not return : several creep in, and,
uneasy at their confinement, are constantly moving to and
fro, and so deposit the pollen upon the stigma: but when
the work intrusted to them is completed, and impregna-
tion has taken place, the hair which prevented their escape
shrinks, and adheres closely to the sides of the flower, and
these little go-betweens of Flora at length leave their pri-
son ''. Sir James Smith supposes that it is for want of some

» Chr. Conr. Sprengel Entdecktcs Gehemnhs, Sfc. Berlin 1793,
4to. quoted in Ann. of Bot. i. 414.

'' Gnindriss dcr KrauterJciaidc, 353. A writer however in the An-
nual Mcdicfd Review (ii. 400.) doubts the accuracy of tliis fact, on the
ground that he could never find T. pennicornis, thougli. A, Clcmatitis
has produced fruit hvf> years at Brompton,

INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 295

insect of this kind that Aristolochia Sipho never forms
fruit in this country.

Equally important is the agency of insects in fructifying
the plants of the Linnean classes Monoecia, Dioecia and
Polygamia, in which the stamens are in one blossom and
the pistil in another. In exploring these for honey and
pollen, which last is the food of several insects besides
bees ^, it becomes involved in the hair, with which in many
cases their bodies seem provided for this express purpose,
and is conveyed to the germen requiring its fertilizing in-
fluence. Sprengel supposes that with this view some plants
have particular insects appropriated to them, as to the
dioecious nettle Catheretes Uriiae, to the toad-flax CatJie-
retes graxndus^ both minute beetles, &c. Whether the ope-
rations of Cj/nips Pscnes be of that advantage in fertilizing
the fig, which the cultivators of that fruit in the East have
long supposed, is doubted by Hasselquist and Olivier'',
both competent observers, who have been on the spot.
Our own gardeners, however, will admit their obligations
to bees in seUi?ig their cucumbers and melons, to which
they find the necessity of themselves conveying pollen from
a male flower, when the early season of the year precludes
the assistance of insects. Sprengel asserts, that apparent-
ly with a view to prevent hybrid mixtures, insects which
derive their honey or pollen from different plants indis-
criminately, will during a whole day confine their visits to
that species on which they first fixed in the morning, pro-
vided there be a sufficient supply of it"^ ; and the same ob-

'^ I have frequently observed Dermcdes flavacem, Ent. Brit, eat
both the petals and stamens of Stellaria Holoslcum ; and Mordellce will
open the anthers with the securiform joints of their palpi to get at the
polleft. ^ llasselquist's Trmr/^, '?.53. h-Aix . Hist , Xaf . y^ni. 2Q\.

""■ WWJA, Grunc/rus, 352.

296 INDIIIKCT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

servation was long since made with respect to bees by our

countryman Dobbs *.

Thus we see that the flowers which we vainly think

are

" born to blush unseen,

And waste their fragrance on the desert air,"

though unvisiteil by the lord of the creation, who boasts
that they were made for him, have nevertheless myriads
of insect visitants and admirers, which, though they pilfer
their sweets, contribute to their fertility.

I am, 8i,Q.
■' Phil. Trans, xlvi. 536.

LETTER X.

BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

DIRECT BENEFITS.

IVlY last letter was devoted to the indirect advantages
which we derive from insects ; in the present I shall
enumerate those of a more direct nature for which we
are indebted to them, beginning with their use as the
food of man, in which respect they are of more impor-
tance than you may have conceived.

One class of animals which, till very lately, have been
regarded as belonging to the entomological world, I
mean the Crustacea, consisting principally of the genus
Cancer of Linne, are universally reckoned amongst our
greatest dainties ; and they who would turn with disgust
from a locust or the grub of a beetle, feel no symptoms
of nausea when a lobster, crab, or shrimp is set before
them. The fact is, that habit has reconciled us to the
eating of these last, which, viewed in themselves with
their threatening claws and many feet, are really more
disgusting than the former. Had the habit been reversed,
we should have viewed the former with appetite and
the latter with abhorrence, as do the Arabs, " who are
as much astonished at our eating crabs, lobsters, and

298 DIRECT BENEriTS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

oysters, as we are at their eating locusts^." That this
would have been the case is clear, at least as far as re-
gards the former position, from the practice in other
parts of the world, both in ancient and modern times, to
which, begging you to lay aside your English prejudices,
I shall now call your attention; first observing by the
way, that the msects used as food, generally speaking,
live on vegetable substances, and are consequently much
more select and cleanly in their diet than the swine or
the duck, which form a favourite part of ours.

Many larvae that belong to the order Colcoptcra are
eaten in different parts of the world. The grub of the
palm- weevil [Calandra Palmarum), which is the size of
the thumb, has been long in request in both the Indies,
^lian speaks of an Indian kuig, who, for a dessert, in-
stead of fruit set before his Grecian guests a roasted
worm taken from a plant, probably the larva of this in-
sect, which he says the Indians esteem very dehcious —
a character that was confirmed by some of the Greeks
who tasted it^. Madam Merian has figured one of these
larvae, and says that the natives of Surinam roast and
eat them as something very exquisite*^. A friend of
mine, who has resided a good deal in the West Indies,
where the palm-grub is called Grugru, informs me that
the late Sir John La Forey, who was somewhat of an epi-
cure, was extremely fond of it when properly cooked.

The larvae also of the larger species of the Capricorn
tribe {Cerambycidi'v) are accounted very great delica-

* Walpole in Clarke's Travels, ii. 187. Even Mr. Boyle speaks with
abhorrence of eating raw oysters. Walton's Aug/er, Life, p. 1 3.
^ /Elian. Hist. 1, xiv. c= 13, rjuotcd in Reaum. ii. 343.
« Ins. Sur. 48.

DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 299

cies in many countries ; and the Cossus of Pliny, which
he tells us the Roman epicures fattened with flour*,
most probably belonged to this tribe. Linne indeed,
following the opinion of Ray'', supposes the caterpillar
of the great goat-moth, the anatomy of which has been
so wonderfully traced by the eye and pencil of the incom-
parable Lyonet, to be the Cossus. But there seems a
strong reason against this opinion ; for Linnc's Cossus
lives most commonly in the willow, Pliny's in the oak ;
and the former is a very disagreeable, ugly and fetid
larva, not very likely to attract the Roman epicures.
Probably they were the larva? of Prionus coriarius,
which I have myself extracted from the oak, or of one
of its congeners *=. The grub of Ceramhyx damicornis,
which is the thickness of a man's finger, is eaten at
Surinam, in America, and in the West Indies, both by
whites and blacks, who empty, wash, and roast them,
and find them delicious'*. Mr. Hall informs me, that

» Hist.Nat.l.-xni.c.'ZA.

^ Wisdom of God, 9th ed. 307. Ray first adopted the opinion here
maintained, that the Cossi were the larvae of some beetle; but after-
wards, from observing in the caterpillar of Bombi/x Cossus a power
of retracting its prolegs within the body, he conjectm'ed that the
hexapod larva from Jamaica, (Prionus damicornis ? ) given him by
Sir Hans Sloane, might have the same faculty, and so be the cater-
pillar of a Bombyx.

<= Amoreux has collected the different opinions of entomologists
on the subject of Pliny's Cossus, which has been supposed the larva
of Calandra Palmarum by GeofFroy ; of Lnca>ius Cervus by Scopoli ;
and of Prionus damicornis by Drury. The first and last, being neither
natives of Italy nor inhabiting the oak, are out of the question. The
larvae of hucanus Cervus and Prionus coriarius, which are found in the
oak as well as in other trees, may each have been eaten under this
name, as their difference would not be discernible cither to collec-
tors or cooks. Amoreux, 154. '' Merian Ins, Sur. 24.

300 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

in Jamaica this grub is called Macauco, and is in request
at the principal tables. A similar insect is dressed at
Mauritius under the name of Moutac, which the whites
as well as Negroes eat greedily^. The larva of C. cervi-
cornis is, according to Linne, held in equal estimation,
and that of Lamia Tribulus when roasted forms an ar-
ticle of food in Africa''. It is probable that all the spe-
cies of this genus might be safely eaten, as well as many
other grubs of Coleoptera ; and although I do not feel
disposed to recommend with Reaumur '=, that the larvae
of Ori/ctes nasicornis should be sought for ^^ dans les
couches de fumier^'' yet I think with Dr. Darwin '^, that
those of the cockchafer which feed upon the roots of
grass, or the perfect insects themselves, which, if we may
judge from the eagerness with which cats, and turkeys
and other birds devour them, are no despicable bonne
houche^ might be added to our entremets. This would
be one means of keeping down the numbers of these
occasionally destructive animals.

In the next order of insects, the Orthoptera, the gryl-
lus, or locust tribe, as they are the greatest destroyers
of food, so as some recompense they furnish a considera-
ble supply of it to numerous nations. They are record-
ed to have done this from the most remote antiquity,
some Ethiopian tribes having been named from this cir-
cumstance Acridophagi (locust-eaters)^. Pliny also re-
lates that they were in high esteem as meat amongst the
Parthians*^. Hasselquist, in reply to some inquiries
which he made on this subject with respect to the Arabs,

^ St. Pierre, Voy. 72. •■ Smeathman, 32. ■" Reaum. ii. 344.
'' Phi/lol. 364. •' Diod. Sic. 1. iii. c. 29. Strabonis Geog. I. xvi. &c.
'" Jlist. Nat. i. xi. c. 39.

DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 301

was informed that at Mecca, when there was a scarcity
of corn, as a substitute for flour they would grind locusts
in their hand-mills, or pound them in stone mortars;
that they mixed this flour with water into a dough, and
made their cakes of it, which they baked like their other
bread. He adds, that it is not unusual for them to eat
locusts when there is no famine ; but then they boil
them first a good while in water, and aflerwards stew
them with butter into a kind of fricassee of no bad fla-
vour'. Leo Africanus, as quoted by Bochart, gives a
similar account '^. Sparrman informs us that the Hot-
tentots are highly rejoiced at the arrival of the locusts in
their country, although they destroy all its verdure, eat-
ing them in such quantities as to get visibly fatter than
before, and making of their eggs a brown or coffee-co-
loured soup. He also relates a curious notion which
they have with respect to the origin of the locusts — that
they proceed from the good will of a great master-con-
juror a long way to the north, who, having removed the
stone from the mouth of a certain deep pit, lets loose
these animals to be food for them'^. This is not unlike
the account given by the author of the Apocalypse, of the
origin of the symbolical locusts, which are said to ascend
upon an angel's opening the pit of the abyss '^. Clenard,
in his letters quoted by Bochart, says that they bring
waggon-loads of locusts to Fez, as a usual article of food ^.
Major Moor informs me, that when the cloud of locusts
noticed in a former letter visited the Mahratta country,
the common people salted and ate them. This was an-
ciently the custom with many of the African nations,

=> Travels, 232. ■> Hieror.. u.]. 14. c. 7. "^ Sparrman, i. 367.
'I Rev. ix. 3. 3. ^ Hifroz. u. 1. 4. c. 7. 492.

302 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

some of whom also smoked them*. They appear even
to have been an article of food offered for sale in the
markets of Greece"^ ; and on a subject so well known, to
quote no other writers, Jackson observes that, when he
was in Barbary in 1799, dishes of locusts were generally
served up at the principal tables and esteemed a great
delicacy. They are preferred by the Moors to pigeons ;
and a person may eat a platefull of two or three hundred
without feeling any ill effects. They usually boil them
in water half an hour, (having thrown away the head,
wings and legs,) then sprinkle them with salt and pep-
per, and fry them, adding a little vinegar •=. — From this
string of authorities you will readily see how idle was
the controversy concerning the locusts which formed
part of the sustenance of John the Baptist, agreeing with
Hasselquist**, that they could be nothing but the animal
locust, so common a food in the East ; and how apt even
learned men are to perplex a plain question, from igno-
rance of the customs of other countries.

In the hemipterous order of insects, none are more
widely dispersed, or (if you will forgive me a pun) have
made more noise in the world than the Tettigonia tribe.
From the time of Homer, who compares the garrulity
of age to the chirpmg of these insects ^, they have been
celebrated by the poets; and Anacreon, as you well
know, has inscribed a very beautiful little ode to them.
We learn from Aristotle, that these insects were eaten

» Pliny, Hist. Nat. 1. vi. c. 30. •> Id. ibid.

<= Jackson's Travels in Morocco, 53. The Rev. R. Sheppard caused
some of the Locusta viridissima, F. to be cooked in the way here
recommended, only substituting butter for vinegar, and found them
excellent.

'' Travels, 230, ' ^ Horn. //. y. 150-4.

DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 303

by the polished Greeks, and accounted very delicious.
The worm (larva), he says, lives in the earth where it
takes its growth ; that it then becomes a Tettigometra
(pupa), when he observes they are most delicious, just
before they burst from their covering. From this state
they change to the Tettix or Cicada, when the males at
first have the best flavour ; but after impregnation the
females are preferred on account of their white eggs*.
Athenaeus also and Aristophanes mention their being
eaten ; and iElian is extremely angry with the men of
his age that an animal sacred to the Muses should be
strung, sold, and greedily devoured''. Pliny tell us tliat
the nations of the East, even the Parthians, whose wealth
was abundant, use them as food "=. The imago of the
Tettigonia septemdecim is still eaten by the Indians in
America, who pluck off the wings and boil them''. This
ancient Greek taste for Tettigoniae seems now gone out
of fashion, at least travellers do not notice it : but per-
haps if it were revived in those countries where the in-
sects are to be found, for they inhabit only warm cli-
mates *, it would be ascertained that so polished a people
did not relish them without reason.

No insects are more numerous in this island than the
caterpillars of Lepidoptera : if these could be used in
aid of the stock of food in times of scarcity, it might sub-
serve the double purpose of ridding us of a nuisance,
and relieving the public pressure. Reaumur suggests

» Arist. Hiit. An. 1. v. c. 30. '' Vide Bochart, Hieroz.ii. 1. 4. c. 7. 491.

<= HisU Nat. 1. xi, c. 26. "» P. Collinson in Phil. Trans. 1763. n. x.

• One species however has been found in Hampshire in the New

Forest. See Samouelle's Entomologist'' s meful Comjiendium, t. v./. 2.

SOi DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

this mode of diminishing the numbers of destructive ca-
terpillars, speaking of that of Noctua Gamma, which did
such infinite mischief in France in the year 1735^. If
however we were to take to eatmg caterpillars, I should,
for my own part, be of the mind of the red-breasts, and
eat only the naked ones^. But you will see that there
is some encouragement from precedent to make a meal
of the caterpillars which infest our cabbages and cauli-
flowers. Amongst the delicacies of a Boshies-man's ta-
ble, Sparrman reckons those caterpillars fi'om which
butterflies proceed*^. The Chinese, who waste nothing,
after they have unwound the silk from the cocoons of
the silk-worm, send the chrysalis to table : they also eat
the larva of a hawk-moth [Sphinx^), some of which tribe.
Dr. Darwin tells us, are, in his opinion, very delicious '* :
and lastly, the natives of New Holland eat the caterpil-
lars of a species of moth of a singular new genus, to which
my friend Alexander MacLeay, Esq., has assigned cha-
racters, and, from the circumstance of its larva coming
out only in the night to feed, has called it Nycterobius.

The next order, the Neuroptera, will make us some
amends for the meagerness of the last, as it contains the
white ant tribe ( Termes), which, in return for the mis-
chief it does at certain times, affords an abundant supply
of food to some of the African nations. The Hottentots
eat them boiled and raw, and soon get into good condi-
tion upon this food ^. Konig, quoted by Smeathman, saj-s
that in some parts of the East Indies the natives make

» Reaum.ii. 341. »> Ray's Letters, 135,

" Sparrman, i. 201. «" Sir G. Staunton's Votj. iii, 346,

•^ P/ii/foL 364. f Sparrman, i. 363.

DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 305

two holes in the nests of the white ants, one to the wind-
ward and the other to the leeward, placing at the latter
opening a pot rubbed with an aromatic herb, to receive
the insects driven out of their nest by a fire of stinking
materials made at the former^. Thus they catch great
quantities, of which they make with flour a variety of
pastry, that they can afford to sell cheap to the poorer
people. Mr. Smeathman says he has not found the
Africans so ingenious in procuring or dressing them.
They are content with a very small part of those that
fall into the waters at the time of swarming, which they
skim off with calabashes, bring large kettles full of them
to their habitations, and parch them in iron pots over a
gentle fire, stirring them about as is done in roasting
coffee. In that state without sauce or other addition
they serve them up as delicious food, and eat them by
handfulls as we do comfits. He has eaten them dressed
in this way several times, and thought them delicate,
nourishina- and wholesome, being sweeter than the grub
of the weevil of the palms, [Calandra Palmarum^) and
resembling in taste sugared cream or sweet almond
paste ^\ The female ant, in particular, is supposed by
the Hindoos to be endowed with highly nutritive pro-
perties, and, we are told by Mr. Broughton, was care-
fully sought after and preserved for the use of the debi-
litated Surjee Rao, prime minister of Scindia chief of
the Mahrattas=.

^ Captain Green relates that, in the ceded districts in India, tliey
place thebranches of trees over thenests, and then by means of smoke
drive out the insects; which attempting to fly, their wings are broken
off' by the mere touch of the branches.

^ Smeathman, 31. ''- Letters written in a Mahrnita Camp in 1809.
VOL. I. X

306 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

The Hymenoptera order also furnishes a few articles
to add to this head. I do not allude to the nectar which
the bees collect for us. But perhaps you do not suspect
that bees themselves in some places serve for food, yet
Knox tells us that they are eaten in Ceylon ^ : — an un-
grateful return for their honey and wax which I would
on no account recommend. Piso speaks of yellow ants
called Cupid inhabiting Brazil, the abdomen of which
many used for food, as well as a larger species under
the name of Tama-joura^; which account is confirmed
by Humboldt, who informs us that ants are eaten by the
Marivatanos and Margueritares, mixed with resin for
sauce. Ants, I speak from experience, have no unplea-
sant flavour ; they are very agreeably acid, and the taste
of the trunk and abdomen is different ; so that I am not
so much surprised as Mr. Consett seems to have been
at the avidity with which the young Swede mentioned by
him sat down to the siege of an ants' nest*=. This author
states, that in some parts of Sweden ants are distilled
along with rye, to give a flavour to the inferior kinds of
brandy"^. — Under this head may not improperly be men-
tioned several galls the product of different species of
Cynips, particularly those found on some kinds of Sage,
viz. Salvia pomifera, S. triloba, and S. afficitialis, which
are very juicy like apples, and crowned with rudiments
of leaves resembling the calyx of that fruit. Tliey are
esteemed in the Levant for their aromatic and acid fla-
vour, especially when prepared with sugar, and form
a considerable article of commerce from Scio to Con-

» Knox's Cn/lon, 25. <" Piso, Iiifl. !. v. c. 13. 291.

•^ Trarrh in Siveflrii, 118. 'i /hid.

DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 307

stantinople, where they are regularly exposed in the
market*. The galls of ground-ivy have also been eaten
in France ; but Reaumur, who tasted them, is doubtful
whether they will ever rank with good fruits^.

To the Diptera order, as a source of food, man can
scarcely be said to be under any obligation ; the larva of
Musca jmtriSf which is so commonly found in cheese,
being the only one ever eaten — a dainty as some think
it, of whom you will perhaps say with Scojfoli, " quibus
has delicias no7i invideo '^."

The order Aptera, now that the Crustacea are ex-
cluded, does not much more abound in esculent insects
than the Diptera. The only species which have tempted
the appetite of man in this order are the cheese-mite
[Acarus Siro) — lice, which are eaten by the Hottentots
and natives of the western coast of Africa, who from
their love of this game, which they not only collect them-
selves from their well stored capital pasture, but employ
their wives in the chase, have been sometimes called
Phthirophagi '^ — and another tribe which you will thuik
even more repulsive than the last, I mean spiders. These
form an article in Sparrman's list of the Boshies-man's
dainties ^ ; and Labillardiere tells us that the inhabitants
of New Caledonia seek for and eat with avidity large
quantities of a spider nearly an inch long (which he calls
Aranea eduUs), and which they roast over the fire^
Even individuals amongst the more polished nations of

=> Smith's Tntrod. to Bot. 340. Olivier's Travels, i. 139.
*> Reaum, iii. 416, " Scop. Camiol. 337.

^ Lat. Hist. Nat. viii. 93. ^ Sparrman, i. 201.

^ Voijage a la recherche de la Pernuse, ii. 240.
X 2

308 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

Europe are recorded as having a similar taste ; so that,
if you could rise above vulgar prejudices, you would in
all probability find them a most delicious morsel. If
you require precedents, Reaumur tells us of a young
lady who when she walked in her grounds never saw a
spider that she did not take and crack upon the spot'.
Another female, the celebrated Anna Maria Schurman,
used to eat them like nuts, which she affirmed they much
resembled in taste, excusing her propensity by saying
that she was born under the sign Scorpio*^. If you wish
for the authority of the learned, Lnlunde the celebrated
French astronomer was, as Latreille witnessed '^, equally
fond of these delicacies. And lastly, if not content with
taking them seriatim you should feel desirous of eating
them by handfuUs, you may shelter yourself under the
authority of the German immortalized by Riisel'', who
used to spread them upon his bread like butter, observ-
ing that he found them very useful, " tmi sich auszulaxi-
renr — These edible Aptera are all sufficiently disgust-
ing: but we feel our nausea quite turned into horror
when we read in Humboldt, that he has seen the In-
dian children drag out of the earth centipedes eighteen
inches long and more than half an inch broad, and de-
vour them ^.

After all I have said, 3'ou may perhaps still feel a pre-
judice against insects as food ; but I think, when you re-
collect that Oberon and his queen Titania, that renown-

" Reaum. ii. 343, ^ Shaw, Nat. Misc.

'■ Hisf. Kat. vii. 327. "^ Rosel, iv. 357.

* Personal Trai^els, ii, 305.

DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 309

ed personage Robin Goodfellow, " with all the fairy
elves that be," number insects amongst their choicest
cates, you will no longer be heretical in this article, but
yield with a good grace ; and as a reward I will copy out
for you a beautiful poetical description of Oberon's feast,
which was lately pointed out to me by a learned biblio-
graphical friend, John Crosse, Esq. of Hull, in Herrick's
Hesjjcrides, 1658.

Shapcot, to thee the fairy state
I with discretion dedicate ;
Because thou prizest things that are
Curious and unfamiliar.
Take first the feast : these dishes gone.
We '11 see the fairy court anon.
A little mushroom table spread j
After short prayers, they set on bread,
A moon-parch'd grain of purest wheat.
With some small glitt'ring grit to eat
His choicest bits with : then in a trice
They make a feast less great than nice.
But all this while his eye is serv'd,
We must not think his ear was starv'd ;
But that there was in place to stir
His spleen, the chirring grasshopper,
The merry cricket, puling fly.
The piping gnat for minstrelsy :
And now we must imagine first
The elves present, to quench his thirst,
A pure seed pearl of infant dew.
Brought and besweeten'd in a blue
And pregnant violet ; which done,
His kithng eyes begin to run
Quite through the table, where he spies
The horns of papery butterflies,

310 DIHLCT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

Of which he eats, and tastes a little

Of what we call the cuckoo's spittle :

A little furze-ball pudding stands

By, yet not blessed by his hands.

That was too coarse : but then forthwith

He ventures boldly on the pith

Of sugar'd rush, and eats the sag

And well be-striitted bee's sweet bag;

Gladding his palate with some store

Of emmet's eggs : what would he more?

But beards of mice, a newt's stew'd thigh,

A bloated earwig and a fly ;

With the red-capp'd worm that 's shut

Within the concave of a nut.

Brown as his tooth : a little moth

Late fatten'd in a piece of cloth ;

With withered cherries ; mandrakes' ears ;

Moles' eyes ; to these the slain stag's tears ;

The unctuous dewlaps of a snail;

The broke heart of a nightingale

O'ercome in music ;

This done, commended

Grace by his priest, the feast is ended.—

Having^ considered insects as adding to the general
stock of food, I shall next request your attention while I
detail to you how far the medical science is indebted to
them. Had I addressed you a century ago, I could have
made this an ample history. Amongst scores of infalli-
ble panaceas, I should have recommended the woodlouse
as a solvent and aperient ; powder of silkworm for ver-
tigo and convulsions ; millepedes against the jaundice ;
earwigs to strengthen the nerves; powdered scorpion for
the stone and gravel; fly- water for disorders in the eyes;

DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 311

and the tick for erysipelas. I should have prescribed
five gnats as an excellent purge ; wasps as diuretics ;
lady-birds for the colic and measles ; the cockchafer for
the bite of a mad dog and the plague; and ants and their
acid I should have loudly praised as incomparable against
leprosy and deafness, as strengthening the memory, and
giving vigour and animation to the whole bodily frame'.
In short, I could have easily added to the miserably mea-
ger list of modern pharmacopoeias, a catalogue of ap-
proved insect-remedies for every chsease and evil

" that flesh is heir to! "

But these good times are long gone by. You would, I
fear, laugh at my prescriptions notwithstanding the great
authorities I could cite in their favour ; and even doubt
the efficacy of a more modern specific for tooth-ache,
promulgated by a learned Italian professor'', who assures
us that a finger once imbued with the juices of Curculio
antiodontalgicus (a name enough to give one the tooth-
ache to pronounce it) will retain its power of curing this
disease for a twelvemonth ! I must content myself, there-
fore, with expatiating on the virtues of the very few in-
sects to which the sons of Hippocrates and Galen now
deign to have recourse. At the same time I cannot help
observing that their proscription of the remainder may
have been too indiscriminate. Mankind are apt to riui
from one extreme to the other. From having ascribed
too much efficacy to insect-remedies, we may now as-

* For this list of remedies, see Lesser, L. ii. 171-3.
^ Gerbi. Tlie same virtues have been ascribed to CovcineUa sep-
tempunctat", L.

312 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

cribe too little. Many insects emit very powerful odours,
and some produce extraordinary effects upon the human
frame ; and it is an idea not altogether to be rejected,
that they may concentrate into a smaller compass the
properties and virtues of die plants upon which they
feed, and thus afford medicines more powerful in opera-
tion than the plants themselves. It is at least worth
while to institute a set of experiments with this view.

Medicine at the present day is indebted to an ant
{Formica bispiiwsa^ Oliv. fungosa, F.) for a kind of lint
collected by that insect from the Bombax and silk cot-
ton-tree, which as a styptic is preferable to the puff'-ball,
and at Cayenne is successfully used to stop the blood in
the most violent haemorrhages ^ ; and gum ammoniac,
according to Mr. Jackson ^^ oozes out of a plant like fen-
nel, fi'om incisions made in the bark by a beetle with a
large horn. But with these exceptions, (in which the
remedy is rather collected than produced by insects,) and
that of spiders' ^vebs, which 'are said to have been re-
cently administered with success in ague, the only insects
which directly supply us with medicine are some species
of Lytta and Mylabris. These beetles however amply
make up in efficacy for their numerical insignificance ;
and almost any article could be better spared from the
Materia Medica than one of the former usually known
imder the name of Cantharides, which is not only of in-

■•' Latr. Hist. Nat. des Founnis, 48. 134.

^ Jackson's Marocco, 83. Some doubt however attaches to tJiis
statement, from the circumstance of the figure which Mr. Jackson
gives of his beetle {Dibbcn Fashooh) being clearly a mere copy of that
of Mr. Br lice's Zimb!

DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 313

calculable importance as a vesicatory, but is now admi-
nistered internally in many cases with very good effect.
In Europe, the only insect used with this view is the
hytta vesicatoria ,- but in America the L. cinerea and vit-
lata (which are extremely common and noxious insects,
while the L. vcsicatoria is sold there at sixteen dollars the
l^ound,) have been substituted with great success, and
are said to vesicate more speedily, and with less pain,
at the same time that they cause no strangury^ : and in
China they have long employed the Mylabris Cichoreif
which seems to have been considered the most powerful
vesicatory amongst the ancients, who however appear to
have been acquainted with the common Lytta vesicatoria
also, and to have made use of it, as well as of Cetonia au-
rata and some other insects mentioned by Pliny ''. An-
other species of Mylabris has been described by Colonel
Hardwicke in the Asiatic Transactions^ ^ plentiful in all
parts of Bengal, Baliar, and Oude, which is fully as ef-
ficacious as the common Spanish fly.

But it is as supplying products valuable in the arts
and manufactures, that we are chiefly indebted to in-
sects. In adverting to them in this view, I shall not
dwell upon the articles derived from a few species in par-
ticular districts, and confined to these alone, such as the
soap which in some parts of Africa is manufactured from
a species of Carabus (C sajwnariuSj Oliv.**); the oil
which Molina tells us is obtained in Chili from large
globular cellules found upon the wild rosemary, and sup-

^' Illigcr Ma^. i. 256. ^ Hist. Nat. \. xix. c. 4. ' Vol. v. nX
'' Oliv, Eiitom. iii. UD. t, iii./ 2b'= Compare rhilanlhropst, ii. ^?10.

314? DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FR03I INSECTS.

posed to be produced by a kind of Cynips ^ ; and the
manure for which Scopoli informs us the hosts of Ephe-
meras that annually emerge in the month of June from
the Laz, a river in Carniola, are employed by the hus-
bandmen, who think tjiey have had a bad harvest unless
every one has collected at least twenty loads''.

Still less is it my intention to detain you in consider-
ing the purpose to which in the West Indies and South
America the fire-flies are put by the natives, who employ
them as lanterns in their journeys, and lamps in their
houses ^ ; — or the use as ornaments to which some insects
are ingeniously applied by the ladies, who in China em-
broider their dresses with the elytra and crust of a bril-
liant species of beetle {Biiprestis vittata) ; in Chili and
the Brazils form splendid necklaces of the golden Chry-
somelae and Curculiones '^ ; in some parts of the conti-
nent string together for the same purpose the burnished
violet-coloured thighs of Scarabceus stercorariuSy &c. *;
and in India, as I am informed by Major Moor and
Captain Green, even have recourse to fire-flies, which
they inclose in gauze and use as ornaments for their hair
when they take their evening walks. I shall confine my
details to the more important and general products which
they supply to the arts, beginning with one indispensable
to our present correspondence, and adverting in succession
to the insects affording dyes, lac, wax, Jioney, and silk.

^ Molina's C/iUi, i. 174. •> Ent. Caniiol. 264.

*= Captain Green was accustomed to put a fire-fly under the glass
of his watch, when he had occasion to rise very early for a march,
which enabled him, without difficulty, to distinguish the hour.

•* Molina,!, 17l.J.*85. ^ Latr. i/?*/. .V«/. x. 143.

DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 315

No present that insects have made to the arts is equal
in utility and universal interest, comes more home to
our best affections, or is the instrument of producing
more valuable fruits of human wisdom and genius, than
the product of the animal to which I have just alluded.
You will readily conjecture I mean the fly that gives birth
to the gall-nut^ from which ink is made. — How infinitely
are we indebted to this little creature, which at once
enables us to converse with oUr absent friends and con-
nexions be their distance from us ever so great, and sup-
plies the means by which, to use the poet's language,
we can

" give to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name ! "

enabling the poet, the philosopher, the politician, the
moralist, and the divine, to embody their thoughts for
the amusement, instruction, direction and reformation of
mankind. — The insect which produces the gall-nut is of
the genus Ci/nips of Linne, but was not known to him
or to Fabricius. Olivier first described it under the name
oi Diidolcpis galla tinctorice^. The galls originate on
the leaves of a species of oak (Queirus injector ia, Oliv.)
very common throughout Asia Minor, in many parts of
which they are collected by the poorer mhabitants and
exported from Smyrna, Aleppo, and other ports in the
Levant, as well as from the East Indies, whither a part
of those collected are now carried. The galls most es-
teemed are those known in commerce under the name of

^ Enci/clop. Insect, vi. 'SSI. It had better, perhaps, as compoiuul
Trivial -Names arc badj be called C^n'ips Scriptoruin.

316 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

blue galls, being the produce of the first gathering before
the fly has issued from the gall. It will not be uninter-
esting to you to know, that from these when bruised
may occasionally be obtained perfect specimens of the
insect, one of which I lately procured in this way. The
galls which have escaped the first searches, and from
most of which the fly has emerged, are called vchite gallSf
and are of a very inferior quality, containing less of the
astringent principle than the blue galls in the proportion
of two to three =*. The white and blue galls are usually
imported mixed in about equal proportions, and are then
called galls in sorts. If no substitute equal to galls as a
constituent part of ink has been discovered, the same may
be said of these productions as one of the most impor-
tant of our dyeing materials constantly employed in dye-
ing black. It is true that this colour may be communi-
cated without galls, but not at once so cheaply and effec-
tually, as is found by their continued large consumption
notwithstanding all the improvements in the art of dye-
ing. Other dyeing drugs are afforded by insects, the
principal of which are Kcrmes, the Scarlet Gram of Po-
land, Cochineal, Lac-lake, and Lac-dye, all of which are
furnished by different species of Coccus.

The first of these, the Coccus Ilicis, L., found abun-
dantly upon a small species of evergreen oak [Qjiiercus
coccifcra, L.) common in the south of France, and many
other parts of the world, has been employed to impart
a blood red or crimson dye to cloth from the earliest
ages, and was known to the Phoenicians before the time
of Moses under the name of Tola or Thola (r!?in), to
, ' Olivitr's Travda hi Eiiiq^f., dc. ii. Gl.

DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED PROM INSECTS. 317

tlie Greeks under that of Coccus [KoKKog)^ and to tlie
Arabians and Persians under that of Kcrmcs or Alker^
vies : whence, as Beckmann has shown, and from the
epithet vermiculatiim given to it in the middle ages, when
it was ascertained to be the produce of a worm, have
sprung the Latin coccineiiSy the French cramoisi and
vermeil^ and our crimson and vermilion. It was most'pro-
bably with this substance that the curtains of the taber-
nacle (Exodus xxvi. &c.) were dyed deep red (which
the word scarlet, as our translators have rendered n)^!jin
''W, then implied, not the colour now so called, which
was not known in James the First's reign when the Bible
was translated) — it was with this that the Grecians and
Romans produced their crimson ; and from the same
source were derived the imperishable reds of the Brus-
sels and other Flemish tapestries. In short, previous to
the discovery of cochineal, this was the material univer-
sally used for dyeing the most brilliant red then known ;
and though that production of the New World has, in
some respects undeservedly*, supplanted it in Europe,
where it is little attended to except by the peasantry of
the provinces in which it is found, it still continues to be
employed in a great part of India and Persia''.

* The colour coniiminicated by Kerines with alum, the 0UI3' mor-
dant formerly employed, is blood red: but Dr. Bancroft found (i. 404.)
that with the sohition of tin used with cochineal it is capable of im-
parting a scarlet quite as brilliant as that dye, and perhaps more per-
manent. At the same tune, however, as ten or twelve pounds con-
tain only as much colouring matter as one of cochineal, the latter at
its ordinary price is the cheapest.

'' Bochart, Ilicrozoic. ii. 1. iv. c. 27. Beckmann's Hisfo/y of Inven-
tions, Engl. Trans, ii. 171-30."). Bancroft on permanent Colours, i. .393,
See also Parkhurst's Heh. Lexicon under ybn and r\n\

318 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

The scarlet grain of Poland {Coccus polonicus, L.) is
found on the roots of the perennial knawel {Scleranthus
perennis, L. a scarce plant in this country, but abundant
in the neighbourhood of Elvedon in Suffolk), and was at
one time collected in large quantities for dyeing red in
the Ukraine, Lithuania, &c. But though still employed
by the Turks and Armenians for dyeing wool, silk and
hair, as well as for staining the nails of women's fingers,
it is now rarely used in Europe except by the Polish
peasantry. A similar neglect has attended the Coccus
found on the roots of Poterium Sanguism-huy L. *, which
was used by the Moors for dyeing silk and wool a rose
colour ; and the Coccus Uva-ursi, which with alum affords
a crimson dye''.

Cochineal, the Coccus Cacti, L., is doubtless the most
valuable product for which the dyer is indebted to in-
sects, and with the exception perhaps of indigo the most
important of dyeing materials. Though the Spaniards
found it employed by the natives of Mexico, where alone
it is cultivated, on their arrival in that country in 1518,
its true nature was not accurately ascertained for nearly
two centuries afterwards. Acosta indeed as early as 1530,
and Herrara and Hernandez subsequently, had stated
it to be an insect. But led apparently by its external
appearance, notwithstanding the conjectures of Lister
and assertions of Pere Plmiiier to the contrary, it was
believed by Europeans in general to be the seed of a
plant, until Plartsoeker in 1694', Leeuwenhoek and De
la Hire in 1704, and Geoffroy, ten years later, by dis-

■■' Rai. Hisf. Plant, i. 401. '- Bancroft, i. 401.

DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 319

sections and microscopical observations incontrovertibly
proved its real origin^.

This insect, which comes to us in the form of a red-
dish shrivelled grain covered with a white powder or
bloom, feeds on a particular kind of Indian fig, called in
Mexico, where alone cochineal is produced in any quan-
tity. Nopal, which has always been supposed to be the
Cactus coc}dnilifci\ L., but according to Humboldt is
unquestionably a distinct species, which bears fruit in-
ternally white.

Cochineal is chiefly cultivated in the intendency of
Oaxaca; and some plantations contain 50 or 60,000 no-
pals in lines, each being kept about four feet high for
more easy access in collecting the dye. The cultivators
prefer the most prickly varieties of the plant, as affording
protection to the cochineal from insects ; to prevent
which from depositing their eggs in the flower or fruit,
both are carefully cut off. The greatest quantity, how-
ever, of cochineal employed in commerce, is produced
in small nopaleries belonging to Indians of extreme po-
verty, called Nopaleros. They plant their nopaleries in
cleared ground on the slopes of mountains or ravines
two or three leagues distant from their villages ; and when
properly cleaned, the plants are in a condition to main-
tain the cochineal in the third year. As a stock, the
proprietor in April or May purchases branches or joints
of the Tuna de Castilla, laden with small cochineal in-
sects recently hatched [Semilla). These branches, which
may be bought in the market of Oaxaca for about three
francs (2^. 6(L) the hundred, are kept for twenty days in

^ Bancroihi. 41.']. Reaum.iv. 88.

320 dihect benefits derived from insects.

the interior of their huts, and then exposed to the open
air under a shed, where from their succulency they con-
tinue to live for several months. In August and Sep-
tember the mother cochineal insects, now big with young,
are placed in nests made of a species of Tillandsia called
Paxtlc, which are distributed upon the nopals. In about
four months the first gathering, yielding twelve for one,
may be made, which in the course of the year is suc-
ceeded by two more profitable harvests. This period of
sowing and harvest refers chiefly to the districts of Sola
and Zimatlan. In colder climates the semilla is not
placed upon the nopals until October or even December,
when it is necessary to shelter the young insects by co-
vering the nopals with rush mats, and the harvests are
proportionably later and unproductive. In the imme-
diate vicinity of the town of Oaxaca the Nopaleros feed
their cochineal insects in the plains from October to
April, and at the beginning of the remaining months,
during which it rains in the plains, transport them to
their plantations of nopals in the neighbourmg mountains,
where the weather is more favourable.

Much care is necessary in the tedious operation of
gathering the cochineal from the nopals, which is per-
formed with a squirrel or stag's tail by the Indian women,
who for this purpose squat down for hours together be-
side one plant; and notwithstanding the high price of the
cochineal, it is to be doubted if the cultivation would be
profitable were the value of labour more considerable.

The cochineal insects are killed either by throwing
them into boiling water ; by exposing them in heaps to
the Sim; or by placing them in the oxens {Teinazcalli)
used for vapour-baths. The last of these methods, which

DIRECT BENF.riTS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 321

is least in use, preserves the whitish powder on the body
of the cochineal, which being thus less subject to the
ndulterations so often practised by the Indians, bears a
higher price both in America and Europe^.

The (juantity at present annually exported from Soiith
America is said by Humboldt to be 32,000 arrobas,
there worth 500,010/. sterling^ — a vast amount to arise
from so small an insect, and well calculated to show us
the absurdity of despising any animals on account of
their muuiteness. So important is the acquisition of
this insect (of which the Spanish govermiient is ex-
tremely jealous) regarded, that the Court of Directors of
the East India Compr.ny have offered a reward of 6000/.
to any one who shall introduce it into India, where hi-
therto the Company have only succeeded in procuring
from Brazil the wild kind producing the sylve&tre cochi-
neal, which is of very inferior value.

Lac is the produce of an insect formerly supposed to
be a kind of ant or bee*^, but now ascertained to be a
species of Coccus, whose history will be adverted to
when I come to speak of the secretions of insects ; and
it is collected from various trees in India, M'here it is
found so abundantly, that, were the consmnption ten
times greater than it is, it could be readily su]iplied.
This substance is made use of in that country in the ma-
nufacture of beads, rings, and other female ornaments.
Mixed with sand it forms grintl-stones ; and added to
lamp- or ivory-black, being first dissolved in water with

=' Humboldt's Political Essay on New Spain, iii. 72-9,
*• Ibitl, iii. f)4.— Dr. Bancroft estimates the present annual con-
sumption of I'ochineal in Great Britain at about 7r)0bags,or 1 50,0001bs,
— worth at the present price 375,000/. '^^ Lesser, L.ii. 16j,

VOL. I. Y

322 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

tiie addition of a litdc borax, it composes an ink not
easily acted upon when dry by damp or water. In this
comitry, where it is distinguished by the names stick-lac
when in its native state unseparated from the twigs to
which it adheres ; seed-lac v/hen separated, pounded, and
the greater part of the colouring matter extracted by
water ; lump-lac when melted and made into cakes ; anil
shell-lac when strained and formed into transparent la-
mina;—it has hitherto been chiefly employed in the
composition of varnishes, japanned ware and sealing-
wax : but within these few years it has been applied
to a still more important purpose, originally suggested
by Dr. Roxburgh— that of a substitute for cochineal in
dyeing scarlet. The first preparations from it with this
view were made in consequence of a hint from Dr. Ban-
croft, and large quantities of a substance termed lac-lake,
consisting of 'the colouring matter of stick-lac precipi-
tated from an alkaline lixivium by alum, were manufac-
tured at Calcutta and sent to this country, where at first
the consumption was so considerable, that in the dn-ee
years previous to 1810 Dr. Bancroft states that the sales
of It at the India House equalled in point of colouring,
matter half a million of pounds weight of cochineal.
More recently, however, a new preparation of lac colour,
under the name of lac-dye, has been imported from India,
which has been substituted for the lac-lake, and with such
advantage, that the East India Company are said to have
saved in a few moiUhs 14,000/. in the purchase of scarlet
cloths dyed with this colour and cochineal conjointly, and
without any iul'.^rlority in the colour obtained =«.
■^ ^M^cl■oii on primoitent Ci>loHrs,u.'iQA^-

DinECT BENEFITS DliRIVED TROM INSECTS. 323

Some other insects besides the Cocci afford dyes. Reau-
mur tells us, that in the Levant, Persia, and China, they
use the galls of a particular species of Aphis for dyeing
silk crimson, which he thinks might lead us to try expe-
riments with those of our own country^. That dyes
might be thus obtained seems probable from an obser-
vation of Linne's, in his Lapland Tour, upon the galls
produced by Aphis Pini on the extremities of the leaves
of the spruce-fir, which, he informs us, when arrived at
maturity burst asunder, and discharge an orange-co-
loured powder which stains the clothes'' ; and Mr. Shep-
pard confirms this observation, the galls of this Aphis
abounding upon fir-trees in his garden. In fact, we are
told that Termmalia citrina^ a tree common in India,
yields a species of galls, the product of an insect, which
are sold in every market, being one of the most useful
dyeing drugs known to the natives, who dye their best
and most durable yellow with tliem'^. A species of mite
{Tromhidium tinctorium — Acarus, L.), a native of Guinea
and Surinam, is also employed as a dye ; and it would
be worth while to try whether our T. holosey-iceum, so
remarkable for the dazzling brilliancy of its crimson and
the beautiful velvet texture of its down, which seems
nearly related to T. thictorium^ would not also afford a
valuable tincture. It is not likely, perhaps, that many
better and cheaper dyes than we now possess can be ob-
tained from insects ; but Reaumur has suggested that
water-colours of beautiful tints, not otherwise easily ob-
tainable, might be procured from the excrements of the

'" Reaum. iii. Preface, xxxi. '' Lark. Lripp, i. "258.

' Trans, of the Soc. of Arts, xxiii. 41 1.

Y 2

324- DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

larvae of the common clothes-moth, which retain the colour
of the wool they have eaten unimpaired in its lustre, and
mix very well with water. To get a fine red, yellow, blue,
green, or any other colour or shade of colour, we should
merely have to feed our larvae with cloth of that tint*.

Wax, so valuable for many minor purposes, and deem-
ed with us so indispensable to the comfort of the great,
is of still more importance in those parts of Europe and
America in which it forms a considerable branch of trade
and manufacture, as an article of extensive use in the re-
ligious ceremonies of the inhabitants. Humboldt informs
us, that not fewer than 25,000 arrobas, value upwards
of 83,000^., are annually exported from Cuba to New
Spain, where the quantity consumed in the festivals of
the Church is immense even in the smallest villages ;
and that the total export of the same island In 1803 was
not less than 42,670 arrobas, worth upwards of 1 30,000/. ^
Nearly the whole of the wax employed in Europe, and
by far the greater part of that consumed in America, is
the produce of the common hive-bee ; but in the latter
quarter of the globe a quantity by no means trifling is
obtained from various wild species. According to Don
F. de Azara, the inhabitants of Santiago del Estero ga-
ther every year not less than 14,000 pounds of a whitish
wax from the trees of Chaco '^.

In China wax is also produced by another insect,
which from the description of it by the Abbe Grosier
seems to be a species of Coccus. With this insect the
Chinese stock the two kinds of tree [Kan-la-chu and

^ Reauni. iii. 95. '' Political Essay, iii. 62.

' Vuyage dans /'Ainer. Merid. i. 16.-2.

OniECT BKNEnrS DEIUVED IKOJM INSECXS. 326

Choni-la-chu) on which alone it is found, and which al-
ways afterwards retain it. Towards the beginning of
winter small tumours are perceived, which increase until
as big as a walnut. These are the nests (abdomens of
the females) filled with the eggs that are to give birth to
the Cocci, which when hatched disperse themselves over
tlie leaves, and perforate the bark under which they re-
tire. The wax (called Pc-la, white wax, because so by
nature,) beghis to appear about the middle of June. At
first a few filaments like fine soft wool are perceived,
rising from the bark roimd the body of the insect, and
these increase more and more until the gathering, which
takes place before the first hoar frosts in September.
The Max is carried to court, and reserved for the empe-
ror, the princes, and chief mandarins. If an ounce of
it be added to a pound of oil, it forms a wax little infe-
rior to that made by bees. The physicians employ it in
several diseases ; and the Chinese, when about to speak
in public and assurance is necessary, previously eat an
ounce of it to prevent swoonings * ; a use of it tor which
happily our less diffident orators have no call. This ac-
count is in the main confirmed by Geomelli Careri, ex-
cept that he calls the wax-insect a "worm which bores to
the pith of certain trees ; and says that it produces a
sufficient supply for the whole empire, the different pro-
vinces of which are furnished from Xantung, where it is
bred in the greatest perfection, with a stock of eggs''.
A verv different origin, however, is assigned to the Pe-Iu
by Sir George Staunton, who informs us that it is pro-
duced by a species of Cicada (C Umbata\ which in its
' Grosicr's China, i. loU. ^ Quoted in Soiithey's Tlialabc^ii. 16G.

326 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FKOM INSECTS.

larva state feeds upon a plant like the privet, strewing
upon the stem a powder, which when collected forms the
wax*. But as he merely states that this powder was
*' supposed " to form it, and does not himself appear to
have made the experiment of dissolving it in oil ; and as
no Cicada yet known produces any similar secretion ; it
is most probable that his information was incorrect, and
that Grosier's statement is the true one.

This probability is nearly converted into certainty by
the fact that many Aphides and Cocci secrete a wax-like
substance, and that a kind of wax very analogous to the
Pe-la, and of the same class with bees-wax, only con-
taining more carbon, is actually produced in India by a
nondescript species of Coccus remarkable for providing
itself with a small quantity of honey like our bees. This
substance, for specimens of which I am indebted to tlie
kindness of Sir Joseph Banks, was first noticed by Dr.
Anderson, and called by him xdiite-lac. It could be ob-
tained in any quantity from the neighbourhood of Madras,
and at a much cheaper rate than bees-wax : but the ex-
periments of Dr. Pearson do not afford much ground
for supposing that it can be advantageously employed in
making candles''. De Azara speaks of a firm white wax
apparently similar, and the produce of an insect of the
same tribe, which is collected in South America in the
form of pearl-like globules from the small branches of
the Quabirinnif, a small shrub two or three feet high '^.

Insects in some countries not only furnish the natives
with wax but with resi7i, which is used instead of tar for

" Embassj/ to C/nna,iAOO. ^ Phi/. Trans. \70i,-!i\\.

^ Vot/ngr dans I' Amcr, Mcrid. i, I'Ji.

DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 327

their ships. Molina informs us that, at Coquimbo in
Chili, resin, either the product of an insect or the conse-
quence of an insect's biting off the buds of a particular
species of Origanum, is collected in large quantities.
The insect in question is a smaH smooth red caterpillar
about half an inch long, which changes into a yellowish
moth with black stripes upon the wings {Phal. ceraria,
Molina). Early in the spring vast nimibers of these ca-
terpillars collect on the branches of the Chila, where
they form their cells of a kind of soft white wax or resin,
in which they undergo their transformations. This wax,
which is at first very wliite, but by degrees becomes yel-
low and finally brown, is collected in autunm by the in-
liabitants, who boil it in water, and make it up into little
cakes for market'.

Honey, another well-known protluct of uisects, has
lost much of its importance since the discovei*)' of sugar;
yet at the present day, whether considered as a delicious
article of food, or the base of a wholesome vinous beve-
rajre of home manufacture, it is of no mean value even
in this country ; and in many inland parts of Europe,
where its saccharine substitute is much dearer than with
us, few articles of rural economy, not of primary impor-
tance, Avould l>e dispensed with more reluctantly. In the
Ukraine some of the peasants have 4 or 500 bee-hives,
and make more profit of their bees than of corn^; and
in Spain the number of bee-hives is said to be incredi-
ble ; a single parish priest was known to possess 5000 ^.

'■' Molina's C7?i//, i. 171.

^ Cnmmunicatioiis to fitr Board of Agrinill, vii. 286,

' Mills on Bees, 77.

328 DIRECT BENEFITS' DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

The domesticated or hive-bee, to which we are in-
debted for this article, is the same according to Latreille
in every part of Europe, except in some districts of Italy,
where a different species {Apis ligustica of Spinola) is kept
— the same probably that is cultivated in the Morea and
the isles of the Archipelago^. Honey is obtained, how-
ever, from many other species both wild and domestic.
What is called rock honey in some parts of America,
which is as clear as water and very thin, is the produce
of wild bees, which suspend their clusters of thirty or forty
waxen cells, resembling a bunch of grapes, to a rock ^ :
and in South America large quantities are collected from
the nests built in trees by Trigona Amalthea^ and other
species of tliis genus recently separated from Apis '^ ;
under which probably should be included the Bamburos,
whose honey, honest Robert Kriox informs us, whole '
towns in Ceylon go into the woods to gather^. Accord-
ing to Azara, one of the chief articles of food of the In-
dians who live in the woods of Paraguay is wild honey *.
Captain Green observes that, in the island of Bourbon,
where he was stationed for some time, there is a bee
which produces a kind of honey much esteemed there.
It is quite of a green colour, of the consistency of oil,
and to the usual sweetness of honey superadds a certain
fragrance. It is called green honey, and is exported to
India, where it bears a high price ^ One of the species

^ Latr. ill Humboldt and Bonpland, Recueil d^ Observations de Zoo-
logie,&c. (Paris, 1805) 300.

•< Hill in Swammcrdam, i. 181, note. ' Latr. ubisupr, 300.

<' Knox's Crylon, 25. * Fo^y. danfi r Amer. Mcrid. i. 16v.

f M. Latreille appears to have described this bee under the naine
of Apis uidcotvr. Mem. aur lea AbcillcS; 8. 39.

DIRECT IJENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 029

that luis probably been attended to ages before our liive-
bee, is Apis fasciata of Latreille, a kind so extensively
cultivated in Egypt, that Niebuhr states he fell in upon
the Nile, between Cairo and Daniietta, with a convoy of
4000 hives, which were transporting from a region where
the season for flowers had passed, to one where the spring
was latere Columella says that the Greeks in like man-
ner sent their bee- hives every year from Achaia into At-
tica ; and a similar custom is not unknown in Italy, and
even in this country m the neighbourhood of heaths. In
Madagascar, according to Latreille, the inhabitants have
domesticated Apis unicolor ,- A. i7idica is cultivated in
India at Pondicherry and in Bengal ; A. Adansonii, Latr.
at Senegal ^ ; and Fabricius thinks that A. acracnsis ( Ceii-
tris, Syst. Piez.) labor iosa^ and others in the East and
West Indies, might be domesticated with greater advan-
tage tlian even A. mellifica '^.

The last, and doubtless the most valuable, product of
insects to which I have to advert is iS///-. To estimate just-
ly the importance of this article, it is not sufficient to view
it as an appendage of luxury unrivalled for richness, lustre,
and beauty; and without which courts would lose hali'
their splendour. We must consider it, what it actually is,
as the staple article of cultivation in many large provinces
in the South of Europe, amongst the inhabitants of whicli
the prospect of a deficient crop causes as great alarm as a
scanty harvest of grain with us ; and after giving enipk)v-
ment to tens of thousands in its first production and Iraus-

* Latr. Hid. Nat. xiv. 20.

'" Latr. in Humboldt and Bonpland, Jlccudl, .ic. Z\)2.

'^' Vorlcsunacn, u3 1.

330 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

portation, as furnishing subsistence to hundreds of thou-
sands more in its final manufacture ; and thus becoming
one of the most important wheels that give circulation to
national vealth.

But we must not confine our vieAv to Europe. When silk
was so scarce in this country, that James the First, while
king of Scotland, was forced to beg of the Earl of Mar the
loan of a pair of silk stockings to appear in before the
English ambassador, enforcing his' request with the co-
gent appeal, " For ye would not, sure, that your king
should aj)pear as a scrub before strangers — " Nay, long
before this period, even prior to the time that silk was va-
lued at its weight of gold at Rome, and the Emperor
•Aurelian refused his empress a robe of silk because of its
dearness — the Chinese peasantry in some of the provinces,
millions in number, were clothed with this material ; and
for some thousand years to the present time, it has been
both there and in India, (where a class whose occupation
was to attend silk-worms appears to have cxi;sted from
time immemorial, being mentioned in the oldest Sanscrit
books =*,) one of the chief objects of cultivation and manu-
facture. You will admit, therefore, that when natm-e

•' — set to \vork millions of spinning worms,
Tiiat in their green shops weave the sniooth-hair'd silk
To deck lier sons ""j "

she was conferring upon tiiem a benefit scarcely inferior
to that consequent upon the gift of wool to the fleecy race,
or a fibrous rind to the flax or hemp plants ; and that man-
kind is not under much less obligation to Pamphila, who,

' Colcbrook in Aiiaiic JicK-anhcs, v, (}], ^ MiUon's Coimis.

UlllECT BENEFITS DEKIVED FROM INSECTS. 331

according to Aristotle, was the discoverer of the art of un-
winding and weaving silk, than to the inventors of the
spinning of those products *.

It seems to have been in Asia that silk was first manu-
factured ; and it was from thence that tlie ancients obtain-
ed it, calling it, from the name of the countrj' whence it
was supposed to be brouglit, Sericum. Of its origin they
were in a great measure ignorant, some supposing it to
be the entrails of a spider-like insect with eight legs, which
was fed for four years upon a kind of paste, and then with
the leaves of the green willow, until it burst with fat ^ ;
others, tliat it was the produce of a worm which built
clay nests and collected wax '^ ; Aristotle, with more truth,
that it was unwound from the pupa of a large horned ca-
terpillar''. Nor was the mode of producing and maimfac-
turing this precious material known to Europe until long
after the Christian a?ra, being first learnt about the year
550 by two monks, who procured in India the eggs of the
silk-worm moth, with which, concealing them in hollow
canes, they hastened to Constantinople, where they spee-
dily multiplied, and were subsequently introduced into
Italy, of which country silk was long a peculiar and staple
commodity. It was not cultivated in France until the
time of Henrv the Fourth, who, considering that nuilber-

* llUf. AiiimaL 1. v. c. 19. A Frendi gentleman, M. Vaucanson, has
invented a millfor unwinding the cocoons of the silk-worm. Scott's
Vuiit to Paris, 4th ed. .304.

'' Pausanias, quoted by Goldsmith, vi. 80.

<■ Pliny Hist. Nat. 1. xi. c. 22.

'^ Aristot. uhi supra. He does not expressly say t\\cpupa, but this wc
must suppose. The lurvn he means could not be the common silk-
vorm, since he describes it as large, iind ha>'ing as it ^mtc horns.

332 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED lllOM INSECTS.

ries grew in his kingdom as well as in Italy, resolved, in
opposition to the opinion of Sully, to attempt introducing
it, and flilly succeeded.

The whole of the silk produced in Europe, and the
greater proportion of that manufactured in China, is ob-
tained from the common silk-worm ; but in India consi-
derable quantities are procured from the cocoons of the
larvae of other moths. Of these the most important spe-
cies known are the Tusseh and Arindy silk-worms, of
which an interesting history is given by Dr. Roxburgh
in tlie Linnean Transactions^. These insects are both
natives of Bengal. The first [Phal. Attacus Paphia^ L.)
feeds upon the leaves of the Jugube tree [Bhamnus Jujuba)
or Bijer of the Hindoos, and of the Terminalia alata gla-
bra, Roxburgh, the Asseen of the Hindoos, and is found
in such abundance as from time immemorial to have af-
forded a constant supply of a very durable, coarse, dark-
coloured silk, which is woven into a cloth called Tusseh-
doofJiies, much worn by the Brahmins and other sects ;
and would doubtless be highly useful to the inhabitants
of many parts of America and of the South of Europe,
where a light and cool, and at the same time cheap and
durable dress, such as this silk furnishes, is much wanted.
The durability of this silk is indeed astonishing. After
constant use for nine or ten years it does not show any
signs of decay. These insects are thought by the natives
of so much consequence, that they guard them by day to
preserve them from crows and other birds, and by night
from the bats. — The Arindy silk-worm {Phal. Cynthia,

'' vii. 33-18. Compare Lord Volcntia's Tra.vch, i. 78.

DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 333

Drury), which feeds solely on the leaves of the Palma
Christie produces remarkably soft cocoons, the silk of
which is so delicate and flossy, that it is impracticable to
wind it off": it is therefore spun like cotton ; and the thread
thus manufactured is woven into a coarse kind of white
cloth of a loose texture, but of still more incredible dura-
bility than the last, the life of one person being seldom
sufficient to wear out a garment made of it. It is used
not only for clothing, but for packing fine cloths, &c.
Some manufacturers in England to whom the silk was
shown, seemed to think that it could be made here into
shawls equal to any received from India.

Other species, as may be inferred from an extract of a
letter given in Young's Annals of Agriculture ^, are known
in China, and have been recently introduced into India.
" We have obtained, " says the writer, " a monthly silk-
worm from China, which I have reared with my own
hands, and in twenty-five days have had the cocoons in
my basins, and by the twenty-ninth or thirty-first day a
new progeny feeding in my trays. This makes it a mine
to whoever would undertake the cultivation of it."

Whether it will ever be expedient to attempt the breed-
ing of the larvae of any European moths, as Noctna pacta^
Sponsa^ &c. proposed with this view by Fabricius'', seems
doubtful, though certainly many of them afford a very
strong silk, and might be readily propagated ; and I have
now in my possession some thread more like cotton than
silk spun by the larva of a moth, which when I was a very
young entomologist I observed (if my memory does not

^ xxiii. 335. '' Vorlemngen, 325.

33+ DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

deceive me) upon Uie Euonymus, and from the twigs of
which (not the cocoon) I unwound it. It is even asserted
that in Germany a manufacture of silk from the cocoons
of the emperor moth [Bomhyx Pavonia) has been esta-
bhshed^*. There seems no question, however, that silk
might be advantageously derived from many native silk-
worms in America. An account is given in the Philoso-
phical Tra?isaciio?is of one found there, whose cocoon is
not only heavier and more productive of silk than that of
the common kind, but is so much stronger that twenty
thx'eads will carry an ounce more^. Don Luis Nee ob-
served on Psydium pomifcrum and pyrij'encm ovate nests
of caterpillars eight inches long, of gray silk, which the
inhabitants of Chilpancingo, Tixtala, &c. in America,
manufacture into stockings and handkerchiefs'^. Great
numbers of similar nests of a dense tissue, resembling
Chinese paper, of a brilliant whiteness, and formed of di-
stinct and separable layers, the interior being the thin-
nest and extraordinarily transparent, were observed by
Humboldt in tlie provinces of Mechoacan and the moun-
tains of Santarosa at a height of 10,500 feet above the
level of the sea, upon the Arbutus MadruJio and other
trees. The silk of these nests, which are the work of the
social caterpillars of a Bombyx [B. Madrono, H.), was
an object of commerce even in the time of Montezuma,
and the ancient Mexicans pasted together the interior
layers, which may be written upon without preparation,
to form a white glossy pasteboard. Handkerchiefs are
still manufactured of it in the Jntendency of Oaxaca**,

« Latr. Hist. Nat. xiv, 150. ^ Pullein in Phil. Trans. 1750. 54.
'^ AniiaU ofJBolnm/, ii. 104. ^ FoUt'tral F.ssni/ on K. Spain, iii. 59.

DIllECt BENEFITS DERIVED FUOM INSECTS. 335

De Azara states that in Paraguay a spider, which is
found to near the thirtieth degree of latitude, forms a
spherical cocoon (for its eggs) an inch in diameter, of a
yellow silk, which the inhabitants spin on account of the
permanency of the colour^. And according to M. B. de
Lozieres, large quantities of a very beautiful silk, of daz-
zling whiteness, may be collected from the cocoons even
of the Ichneumons that destroy the larva? of some moth
in the West Indies which feed upon the indigo and cas-
sada''.

It is probable, too, that other articles besides silk might
be obtamed from the larvae which usually produce it, par-
ticularly cements and varnishes of different kinds, some
hard, others elastic, fx'om their gum and silk reservoirs,
from which it is said the Chinese procure a fine var-
nish, and fabricate what is called by anglers Indian
grass ^. The diminutive size of the animal will be thought
no objection, when we recollect that the very small quan-
tity of purple dye afforded by the Purpura of the ancients
did not prevent them from collecting it.

I now conclude this long series of letters on the inju-
ries caused by insects to man, and the benefits which he
derives from them ; and I think you will readily admit

* Voyage dans f Amcr. Mcrid. i. 212. It may here be observed as
a benefit derived by the liigher walks of philosophy from insects — that
astronomers employ the strongest thread of spiders, the one namely
that supports the web, for the divisions of the micrometer. By its
ductility this thread acquires about a fiftli of its ordinary length.
Nouv. Diet. (THist. Nat. ii. 280.

•* American Phil. 7'rans. v. ^{25.

* Anderson's Eccrealions in Agncultiiie, &c iv. 39.9.

336 DIRECT BEXEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

that I have sufiiciently made good my position, that the
study of agents which perform such important functions
in the economy of nature must be worthy of attention.
Our subsequent correspondence will be devoted to the
most interesting traits in their history, as their affection
to their young, their food and modes of procuring it, ha-
bitations, societies, &c.

I am, &c.

LETTER XL

OxV THE AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR
THEIR YOUNG,

Amongst the larger animals, every observer of nature
has witnessed, with admiration, that love of their offspring
which the beneficent Creator, with equal regard to the
happiness of the parent and the progeny, has interwoven
in the constitution of his creatures. Who that has any
sensibility, has not felt his heart dilate with gratitude to
the giver of all good, in observing amongst the domestic
animals which surround him, the effects of this divine
storge, so fruitful of the most delightful sensations? Who
that is not a stock or a stone has read unmoved the
anecdote recorded in books of Natural History, of the
poor bitch, which in the agonies of a cruel dissection
licked with parental fondness her new-born offspring ; or
the affecting account of the she-bear related in Phipps's
Voyage to the No7ih Pole, which, herself severely wound-
ed by the same shot that killed her cubs, spent her last
moments in tearing and laying before them the food she
had collected, and died licking their wounds?

These feelings you must have experienced, but it has
scarcely occurred to you that you would have any room

VOL. I. z

338 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOK TIIEIU YOUNG.

for exercising tliem in your new pursuit. You have not,
I dare say, suspected that any similar example could
have been adduced amongst insects, to which at the first
glance there seems even somethinc; absurd in attributins;
any thing like parental affection. An animal not so big
perhaps as a grain of v/heat, feel love for its offspring —
how preposterous ! we are ready to exclaim. Yet the
exclamation would be very much misplaced. Nothing-
is more certain than that insects are capable of feeling
quite as much attachment to their offspring as the largest
quadrupeds. They undergo as severe privations in nou-
rishing them ; expose themselves to as great risk in de-
fending them ; and in the very article of death exhibit as
much anxiety for their preservation. Not that this can
be said of all insects. A very large proportion of them
are doomed to die before their young come into exist-
ence. But in these the passion is not extinguished. It
is merely modified, and its direction changed. And when
you witness the solicitude with which they provide for
the security and sustenance of their future young, you
can scarcely deny to them love for a progeny they are
never destined to behold. Like affectionate parents in
similar circumstances, their last efforts are employed in
providing for the children that are to succeed them.

I. Observe the motions of that common white butter-
fly which you see flying from herb to herb. You perceive
that it is not food she is in pursuit of; for flowers have
no attraction for her. Her object is the discovery of a
plant that will supply the sustenance appropriated by

AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 339

Providence to her young, upon which to deposit lier eggs.
Her own food has been honey drawn from the nectary
of a flower. This, therefore, or its neighbourhood, we
might expect woukl be the situation she would select for
them. But no: as if aware that this food would be to
them poison, she is in search of some plant of the cabbage
tribe. But how is she to distinguish it from the surround-
ing vegetables? She is taught of God! Led by an in-
stinct far more unerring than the practised eye of the
botanist, she recognises the desired plant the moment she
approaches it, and vipon this she places her precious bur-
then; yet not without the further precaution of ascertain-
ing that it is not preoccupied by the eggs of some other
butterfly ! Having fulfilled this duty, from which no
obstacle short of absolute impossibility, no danger how-
ever threatenmg, can divert her, the affectionate mother
dies.

This may serve as one instance of the solicitude of in-
sects for their future progeny. But almost every spe-
cies will supply examples similar in principle, and in
their particular circumstances even more extraordinary.
In every case (except in some remarkable instances of
mistakes of instinct, as they may be termed, which will
be subsequently adverted to) the parent unerringly di-
stinguishes the food suitable for her offspring, however
dissimilar to her own ; or at least invariably places her
eggs, often defended from external injury by a variety of
admirable contrivances, in the exact spot where, when
hatched, the larvae can have access to it. — The dragon-
fly is an inhabitant of the air, and could not exist in wa-
ter : yet in this element, which is alone adapted for her

z 2

34-0 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNfi,

young, she ever carefully drops her eggs. The larva?
of the gad-fly ( (Estrus Equi), whose history has been be-
fore described to you^, are destined to live in the sto-
mach of the horse. How shall the parent, a two-winged
fl}', convey them thither? By a mode truly extraor-
dinary. Flying round the animal, she curiously poises
her body for an instant while she glues a single egg to
one of the hairs of his skin, and repeats this process
until she has fixed in a similar way many hundred eggs-
These, after a few days, on the application of the slight-
est moisture attended by warmth, hatch into little grubs.
Whenever, therefore, the horse chances to lick any part
of his body to which they are attached, the moisture of
the tongue discloses one or more grubs, which adhering
to it by means of the saliva are conveyed into the mouth,
and thence find their way into the stomach. But here
a question occurs to you. It is but a small portion of
the horse's body which he can reach with his tongue :
what, you ask, becomes of the eggs deposited on other
parts ? I will tell you how the gad-fly avoids this dilem-
ma; and I will then ask you if she does not discover
a provident forethought, a depth of instinct, which al-
most casts into shade the boasted reason of man ? She
places her eggs only on those parts of the skin which
the horse is able to reach with his tongue ; nay, she con-
fines them almost exclusively to the knee or the shoulder,
which he is sure to lick. "What could the most refined
reason, the most precise adaptation of means to an end,
do more''?

Not less admirable is the parental instinct of that vast
<* P. 14G, Sec. ^ Clark in Linn. Trans, iii. 304.

AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 341

tribe of insects already introduced to you by the name
of Ichneumons, whose young are destined to feed upon
the Hving bodies of other insects. These, as you know,
are so numerous, that scarcely an insect exists, which in
its larva state is not exposed to the attacks of one or
other of them ; and even the pupae, nay the very eggs of
these animals, are not safe from their insidious manojuvres.
The size of the different species varies in proportion to
that of the bodies which are to be their food ; some being
so inconceivably small, that the egg of a butterfly not
bigger than a pin's head is of sufficient magnitude to
nourish two of them to maturity ' ; others so large, that
the body of a full-grown caterpillar is not more than
enough for one. They are the larvae of these Ichneu-
mons which make such havoc of our pygmy tribes : the
perfect insect is a four-winged fly, which takes no other
food than a little honey ; and the great object of the fe-
male is to discover a proper nidus for her eggs. In
search of this she is in constant motion. Is the cater-
pillar of a butterfly or moth the appropriate food for her
young ? You see her alight upon the plants where they
are most usually to be met with, run quickly over them,
carefully examinuig every leaf, and, having found the
unfortunate object of her search, insert her sting into its
flesh and there deposit an egg. In vain her victim, as
if conscious of its fate, writhes its body, spits out an acid
fluid, menaces with its tentacula, or brings into action
the other organs of defence with which it is provided.
The active Ichneumon braves every danger, and does
not desist until her courage and address have ensured
* Bonnet, ii. 344.

342 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG.

subsistence for one of her future progeny. Perhaps,
however, she discovers, by a sense the existence of which
we perceive, though we have no conception of its nature,
that she has been forestalled by some precursor of her
own tribe, that has already bvu'ied an egg in the cater-
pillar she is examining. In this case she leaves it, aware
that it would not suffice for the support of two, and pro-
ceeds in search of some other yet unoccupied. — The pro-
cess is of course varied in the case of those minute spe-
cies of which several, sometimes as many as 150, can
subsist in a single caterpillar. The little Ichneumon
then repeats her operations until she has darted into her
victim the requisite number of eggs.

The larvse liatched from the eggs thus ingeniously de-
posited, find a delicious banquet in the body of the ca-
terpillar, which is sure eventually to fall a victmi to their
ravages. So accurately, however, is the supply of food
proportioned to the demand, that this event does not
take place until the young Ichneumons have attained
their full grov/th ; when the caterpillar either dies, or,
retaining just vitality enough to assume tlie pupa state,
then finishes its existence; the pupa disclosing not a
moth or a butterfly, but one or more full-grown Ichneu-'
mons.

In this strange and apparently cruel operation one
circumstance is truly remarkable. The larva of the Ich-
neumon, though every day, perhaps for months, it gnaws
the inside of the caterpillar, and though at last it has de--
voiu'ed almost every part of it except the skin and intes-
tines, carefidly all this time avoids wjnrhig the vital or-
gans.) as if awai'e that its own existence depends on that

AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 343

of the insect on which it preys ! Thus the caterpilhir
continues to eat, to digest, and to move, apparently little
injured, to the last, and only perishes when the parasitic
grub witliin it no longer recjuires its aid. What would
be the impression which a similar instance amongst the
race of quadrupeds would make upon us ? — If, for ex-
ample, an animal — such as some impostors have pre-
tended to carry within them — should be found to feed
upon the inside of a dog ; devouring only those parts not
essential to life, while it cautiously left uninjured the
heart, arteries, lungs, and intestines, — should we not re-
gard such an instance as a perfect prodigy, as an exam-
ple of instinctive forbearance almost miraculous?

Some Ichneumons, instead of burying their eggs in
the body of the larvae that are to serve their young for
food, content themselves with gluing them to the skin of
their prey, which the young grubs pierce as soon as
hatched. Another tribe, whose activity and perseverance
are equally conspicuous, which includes the beautiful ge-
nus Chrysis and many other hymenopterous insects, imi-
tating the insidious cuckoo, contrive to introduce their
efrtrs into the nests in which bees and other insects have
deposited theirs. With this view they are constantly on
the watch, and, the moment the unsuspecting mother
has quitted her cell for the purpose of collecting a store
of food or materials, glide into it and leave an egg, the
germe of a future assassin of the larva that is to spring
from that deposited by its side.

The females of the insects of which we have been speak-
ing, in providing for their offspring, are saved the trou-
ble of furnishing them with any habitation. Either they

SH- AFIECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIIl YOUNG.

occupy that of another insect, or find a convenient abode
within the body of that on which tliey feed. But upon the
maternal affection of another large hymenopterous tribe,
chiefly belonging to the Linnean genus Sphex, whose
young in like manner feed on other insects, is imposed
the arduous task not merely of collecting a supply of
food, but of inclosing it along with their eggs in cells or
burrows often of considerable depth, and dug with great
labour in sand or the solid earth.

The general economy of these insects is similar. Having
first dug a cylindrical cavity of the requisite dimensions,
and deposited an egg at the bottom, they inclose along with
it one or more caterpillars, spiders, or other insects, each
particular species for the most part selecting a distinct
kind, as a provision for the young one when hatched,
and sufficiently abundant to nourish it until it becomes a
pupa. Many thus furnish several cells. This process,
however, is varied by different species, some of whose
operations are worthy of a more detailed description.

One of the most early histories of the procedure of an
insect of this kind (probably Ammophila vulgaris^ Kirby)
Is left us by the excellent Ray, who observed it along
with his friend WlUughby. On the 22d of June 1667,
lie tells us, they noticed this insect dragging a green ca-
terpillar thrice as big as itself, which after thus convey-
ing about fifteen feet, it deposited at the entrance of a
liole previously dug in the sand. Then removing a pel-^
let of earth from its mouth, it descended into the cavity,
and, presently returning, dragged along with it the ca-
terpillar. After staying awhile it again ascended, then
rolled pieces of earth Into the hole, at intervals scratch-.

AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR, THEIR YOUNG. 345

jiig the dust into it like a dog with its fore feet, and en-
tering it as if to press down and consolidate the mass :
flying also once or twice to an adjoining fir-tree, possi-
bly to procure resin for agglutinating the whole. Having
filled the burrow to a level with the surrounding earth so
as to conceal the entrance, it took two fir-leaves lying at
hand, and placed them near the orifice as if to mark the
place. — Such is the anecdote left on record by our illus-
trious countryman, of whose accuracy of observation
there can be no doubt. Who that reads it can refrain
from joining in the reflection which it calls from him,
*' Qjiiis hccc non mihi miretur et stupeat ? Qiiis hujusmodi
opera ynerce machines j^ossit attrihuere^ /"'

I myself, when walking with a friend some months
ago, observed nearly similar manoeuvres performed by
a species of Pompilus [Sphex, L.), which attracted our
attention as it was dragging a spider to its cell. The
attitude in which it carried its pre}', namely with its feet
constantly upwards ; its singular mode of walking, which
was backwards, except for a foot or two when it went
forwards, moving by jerks and making a sort of pause
every few steps ; and the astonishing agility with which,
notwithstanding its heavy burthen, it glided over or be-
tween the grass, weeds, and other numerous impediments
in the rough path along which it passed — together formed
a spectacle which we contemplated with admiration. The
distance which we thus observed it to traverse was not
less than twenty-seven feet, and great part of its journey
had probably been performed before we saw it. Once
or twice, when we first noticed it, it laid down the spider,
-' Rui. IlisL Lis. 2oi.

346 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG.

and making a small circuit returned and took it up again.
But for the ensuing twenty or twenty-five feet it never
stopped, but proceeded in a direct line for its burrow
with the utmost speed. When opposite the hole, which
was in a sand bank by the way side, it made a sharp
turn, as evidently aware of being in the neighbourhood
of its abode, but M^lien advanced a little further laid down
its burthen and went to reconnoitre. At first it climbed
up the bank, but, as if discovering that this was not the
direction, soon returned, and, after another survey per-
ceiving the hole, took up the spider and dragged it in
after it.

In the two instances above given, one dead caterpillar
or spider only was deposited in each hole. But an in-
sect described by Reaumur under the name of the ma-
son-wasp {Epipone sj)i7i!jjes, Latr.), very common in
some parts of England, after having excavated a burrow,
with an ingenuity to which on a future occasion I shall
draw your attention, places along "with its egg as food for
the future young, about twelve little green grubs without
feet, which it has carefully selected full grown and con-
veyed without injuring them. You will inquire. Why this
difference of procedure ? With regard to the choice of a
nmnber of small grubs rather than of one large caterpil-
lar, what I have said in a former letter on the subject of
different species of this tribe being appointed to prey
upon and thus keep within due limits the larvae of diffe-
rent kinds of insects, will be a sufficient answer. But
one circumstance creditable to the talents of the mason-
wasp as a skilful purveyor should not be omitted, namely,
that the number of grubs laid up is not always the same,

AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR TIIEIR YOUNG. S47

but is exactly proportioned to their size, eleven or twelve
being stored when they are small, but only eight or nine
when larger. With respect however to the caution of
the wasp in selecting fliU grown grubs and conveying
them uninjured to her hole, a satisfactory explanation
may be given. If those that are but partly grown were
chosen, they would die in a short time for want of food,
and putrefying would destroy the inclosed egg, or the
young one which springs from it. But when larvae of
any kind have attained their full size, and are about to
pass into the pupa state, they can exist for a long period
without any further supply. By selecting these, there-
fore, and placing them uninjured in the hole, however
long the interval before the egg hatches, the disclosed
larva is sure of a sufficiency of fresh and wholesome nu-
triment.— To prevent the possibility of any injury to its
egg from the motions or voracity of this living prey, the
wasp is careful to pack the whole so closely, each grub
being coiled above the other in a series of rings, and to
consolidate the earth so firmly above them, that they
have not the slightest power of motion*. — Those which
select more powerful caterpillars, or revenge the injuries
of their insect brethren by devoting spiders to the de-
struction they have so often caused, take care to sting
them in such a manner as, without killing them outrie-ht,
will incapacitate them from doing any injury.

Zeal and activity in providing for the well-being of

their future progeny, not inferior to what are exhibited

by the tribe of Ichneumons, Spheges, and mason-wasps,

though less cruelly exerted, are also shown by various spe-

^ Reaiim. vi. 352.

348 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG,

cies of wild-bees, of which we have in this country a vast
number. Having first excavated a proper cell with a
dexterity and persevering labour never enough to be ad-
mired, they next deposit in it an egg^ which they cover
with a mass of pollen or honey collected with unwearied
assiduity from a thousand flowers. As soon as the grub
is hatched, it finds itself enveloped in this delicious ban-
quet provided for it by the cares of a mother it is doom-
ed never to behold ; and so accurately is the repast pro-
portioned to its appetite and its wants, that as soon as
the whole is consumed it has no longer need of food ; it
clothes itself in a silken cocoon, becomes a pupa, and
after a deep sleep of a few days bursts from its cell an
active bee.

No circumstance connected with the storge of insects,
is more striking than the herculean and incessant labour
which it leads them cheerfully to undergo. Some of
these exertions are so disproportionate to the size of the
insect, that nothing short of ocular conviction could at-
tribute them to such an agent. A wild bee or a Sphex,
for instance, will dig a hole in a hard bank of earth some
inches deep and five or six times its own s ze, and la-
bour unremittingly at this arduous undertaking for se-
veral days, scarcely allowing itself a moment for eating
or repose. It will then occupy as much time in search-
ing for a store of food ; and no sooner is this task finish-
ed, than it will set about repeating the process, and be-
fore it dies will have completed five or six similar cells
or even more. If you would estimate this industry at its
proper value, you should reflect what kind of exertion it
would require in a man to dig in a few days out of jiard

AFFECTION. OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 349

clay or sand, with no other tools than his nails and teeth,
five or six caverns twenty feet deep and four or five wide
— for such an undertaking would not be comparatively
greater than that of the insects in question.

Similar laborious exertions are not confined to the bee
or Sphex tribe. Several beetles in depositing their eggs
exhibit examples of industry equally extraordinary. The
common dor or clock (^Geotrupes sto-corariits^ L.), which
may be found beneath every heap of dung, digs a deep cy-
Undrical hole, and, carrying down a mass of the dung to the
bottom, in it deposits its eggs. And many of the species of
the genus Scarabceus of MacLeay *, roll together wet dung
into round pellets, deposit an egg in the midst of each,
and when dry push them backwards by their hind feet
to holes of the surprising depth of three feet, which they
have previously dug for their reception, and which are
often several yards distant. Frequently the road lies
across a depression in the surface, and the pellet when
nearly pushed to the summit rolls back again. But our
patient Sisyphi are not easily discouraged. They repeat
their efforts again and again, and in the end their perse-
verance is rewarded by success. The attention of these
insects to their eggs is so remarkable, that it was ob-
served in the earliest ages, and is mentioned by ancient
writers, but with the addition of many fables, as that
they were all of the male sex, that they became young
again every year, that they rolled the pellets containing
their eggs fi-om sun-rise to sun-set every day, for twenty-

^ Mr. W. S. MacLeay in a very remarkable and learned work
{HorcE Entomologic(e) has very properly restored its ancient name to
this genus.

350 ArrECTioN of insects for their young.

eight days without intermission^, &c. It is one of this
tribe of beetles [S. sacer) whose image is so often met
with amongst the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, with
whom it was a symbol of the world, of the sun, and of a
courageous warrior. Of the world, as P. Valerianus
supposes, on account of the orbicular form of its pellets
of dung, and the notion of their being rolled from sun-
rise to sun-set ; of the sun, because of the angular pro-
jections from its head resembling rays, and the thirty
joints of the six tarsi of its feet answering to the days of
the month ; and of a warrior, from the idea of manly
courage being connected with its supposed birth from a
male only''. It was as symbolical of this last that its image
was worn upon the signets of the Roman soldiers ; and
as typical of the sun, the source of fertility, it is yet, as
Dr. Clarke informs us, eaten by the women to render
them prolific ^.

These beetles, however, in point of industry must yield
the palm to one {Necropho7-us Vespillo, F.) whose singu-
lar history was first detailed by M. Gleditsch in the Acts
of the Berlin Society for 1752. He begins by informing
us that he had often remarked that dead moles when
laid upon the ground, especiallyif upon loose earth, were
almost sure to disappear in the course of two or three
days, often of twelve hours. To ascertain the cause, he
placed a mole upon one of the beds in his garden. It
had vanished by the third morning ; and on digging

» Mouffet, 153.

'' J. Pierii Valeriani Hicroglyphica, 93-5. Mouffet, 156.

•^ Travels, ii. 30G. Compare M. Latreille's learned Memoir en-
titled Des Insectes peints ou sculptcs sur les Momimens antiques de
VEgypte. Ann. du Mm. 1819.

AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNCr. 351

where it had been laid, he found it buried to the depth of
three inches, and under it four beetles which seemed to
have been the agents in this singular inhumation. Not
perceiving any thing particular in the mole, he buried it
again ; and on examining it at the end of six days he
found it swarming with maggots apparently the issue of
the beetles, which M. Gleditsch now naturally concluded
had buried the carcase for the food of their future young.
To determine these points more clearly, he put four of
these insects into a glass vessel half filled with earth and
properly secured, and upon the surface of the earth two
frogs. In less than twelve hours one of the frogs was
interred by two of the beetles : the other two ran about
the whole day as if busied in measuring the dimensions
of the remaining corpse, which on the third day was also
found buried. He then introduced a dead linnet. A
pair of the beetles were soon engaged upon the bird.
They began their operations by pushing out the earth
from under the body so as to form a cavity for its re-
ception ; and it was curious to see the efforts which the
beetles made by dragging at the feathers of the bird from
below to pull it into its grave. The male having driven
the female away continued the work alone for five
hours. He lifted up the bird, changed its place, turned
it and arranged it in the grave, and fi'om time to time
came out of the hole, mounted upon it and trod it under
foot, and then retired below and pulled it down. At
length, apparently wearied with this uninterrupted la-
bour, it came forth and leaned its head upon the earth
beside the bird without the smallest motion as if to rest
itself, for a full hour, when it again crept under the

352 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUxVG-.

earth. The next day in the morning the bird was an
inch and a half under ground, and the trench remained
open the whole day, the corpse seeming as if laid out
upon a bier, surrounded with a rampart of mould. In
the evening it had sunk half an inch lower, and in an-
other day the work was completed and the bird covered.
— M. Gleditsch continued to add other small dead ani-
mals, which were all sooner or later buried ; and the re-
sult of his experiment was, that in fifty days four beetles
had interred in the very small space of earth allotted to
them, twelve carcases : viz. four frogs, three small birds,
two fishes, one mole, and two grasshoppers, besides the
entrails of a fish, and two morsels of the lungs of an ox.
In another experiment a single beetle buried a mole forty
times its own bulk and weight in two days*. It is plain
that all this labour is incurred for the sake of placing in
security the future young of these industrious insects
along with a necessary provision of food. One mole
would have sufficed a long time for the repast of the
beetles themselves, and they could have more conveniently
fed upon it above ground than below. But if they had
left thus exposed the carcase in which their eggs were
deposited, both would have been exposed to the immi-
nent risk of being destroyed at a mouthful by the first
fox or kite that chanced to espy them.

At the first view I dare say you feel almost inclined
to pity the little animals doomed to exertions apparently
so disproportioned to their size. You are ready to ex-
claim that the pains of so short an existence, engrossed
with such arduous and incessant toil, must far outweigh
» Gleditsch FJn/s\c. BU. Occon. Abhandl. iii. 200-227.

AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 353

the pleasures. Yet the inference would be altogether
erroneous. What strikes us as wearisome toil, is to the
httle agents delightful occupation. The kind Author of
their being has associated the performance of an essen-
tial duty with feelings evidently of the most pleasurable
description ; and, like the affectionate father whose love
for his children sweetens the most painful labours, these
little insects are never more happy than when thus ac-
tively engaged. " A bee," as Dr. Paley has well ob-
served, " amongst the flowers in spring, (when it is oc-
cupied without intermission in collecting farina for its
young or honey for its associates,) is one of the cheer-
fullest objects that can be looked upon. Its life appears
to be all enjoyment : so busy and so pleased*."

Of the sources of exquisite gratification which every
rural walk will open to you, while witnessing in the ani-
mals themselves those marks of affection for their unseen
progeny of which I have endeavoured to give you a
slight sketch, it will be none of the least fertile to exa-
mine the various and appropriate instruments with which
insects have been furnished for the effective execution of
their labours. The young of the saw-fly tribe ( Tcnthre-
do, L.) are destined to feed upon the leaves of rose-trees
and various other plants. Upon the branches of these
the parent fly deposits her eggs in cells symmetrically
arranged; and the instrument with which she forms
them is a saw, somewhat like ours but far more inge-
nious and perfect, being toothed on each side, or rather
consisting of two distinct saws, with their backs (the teeth
or serratures of which are themselves often serrated,
-' Natural Theologij, 497.

VOL. I. 2 A

354' AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG.

and the exterior flat sides scored and toothed), which
play alternately ; and, while their vertical effect is that of
a saw, act laterally as a rasp. When by this alternate
motion the incision, or cell, is made, the two saws, re-
ceding from each other, conduct the egg between them
into it*. The Cicada^ so celebrated by the poets of an-
tiquity, which lays its eggs in dry wood, requires a
stronger instrument of a different construction. Accord-
ingly it is provided with an excellent double auger, the
sides of which play alternately and parallel to each other,
and bore a hole of the requisite depth in very hard sub-
stances without ever being displaced.

The construction of the sting or ovipositor with which
the different species of Ichneumon are provided, is not
less nicely adapted to its various purposes. In those
which lay their eggs in the bodies of caterpillars that feed
exposed on the leaves of plants it is short, often in very
large species not the eighth of an inch long : having free
access to their victims, a longer sting would have been
useless. But a considerable number oviposit in larvae
which lie concealed where so short an instrument could
not possibly approach them. In these, therefore, the sting
is proportionably elongated, so much so that in some
small species it is three or four times the length of the
body. Thus in Ichneumon Manifestatoi\ whose economy
has been so pleasingly illustrated by Mr. Marsham**, and
which attacks the larva of a wild bee {^Apis maxillosa)
lying at the bottom of deep holes in old wood, the sting

» Prof. Peck's Nat. Hist. of the Slug-iuorm, t.\2.f, 12-14. Plate XV.
Fig. 21.

" Lmn. Tram. iii. 23.

AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 355

is nearly two inches long » : and it is not much shorter
in the more minute /. StrohileUce, which lays its eggs in
larvae concealed in the interior of fir cones, which without
such an apparatus it would never be able to reach.

The tail of the females of many moths whose eggs re-
quire to be protected from too severe a cold and too
strong a light, is furnished, evidently for application to
this very purpose, with a thick tuft of hair. But how
shall the moth detach this non-conducting material and
arrange it upon her eggs? Her ovipositor is provided at
the end with an instrument resembling a pair of pincers,
which for this purpose are as good as hands. With these,
having previously deposited her eggs upon a leaf, she
pulls off her tuft of hairs, with which she so closely enve-
lops them as effectually to preserve them of the required
temperature : and having performed this last duty to her
progeny she expires.

The ovipositor of the Capricorn beetles [Ceravibyx, L.),
an infinite host, is a flattened retractile tube, of a hard
substance, by means of which it can introduce its eggs
under the bark of timber, and so place them where its
progeny will find their appropriate food''. The auger
used by certain species of CEstrus, to enable them to
penetrate the hides of oxen or deer and form a nidus for
their eggs, has been before described *=. — But to enu-
merate all the varieties of these instruments would be
endless.

The purpose which in the insects above mentioned is
answered by their anal apparatus, is fulfilled in the nu-

» Plate XVI. Fig. 1, ''See Kirby in Linn. Trans, v. 254.

/. 13. /. 15. " See above, 149.

2 a2

356 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG.

merous tribes of weevils [Curcidio^ L.) by the long
slender snout with which their head is provided. It is
with this that C. nucum pierces the shell of the nut, and
the weevil {Calandra granaria, F.) the skin of the grains
of wheat, in which they respectively deposit their eggs,
prudently introducing one only into each nut or grain,
which is sufficient, but not more than sufficient, for the
nourishment of the grub that will inhabit it.

II. Hitherto I have adverted to those insects only
which perish before theu* young come into existence,
and can therefore evince their affection for them in no
other way than by placing the eggs whence they are to
spring in secure situations stored with food; and these
include by far the largest portion of the race. A very
considerable number, however, extend their cares much
further : they not only watch over their eggs after depo-
siting them, but attend upon their young, when excluded,
with an affectionate assiduity equal to any thing exhibit-
ed amongst the larger animals, and in the highest degree
interesting. Of this description are some solitary insects,
as several species of the Linnean genus Sphex, earwigs,
field-bugs, and spiders : and those insects which live in
societies, namely, ants, bees, wasps, and termites: the
most striking traits of whose history in these respects I
shall endeavour to lay before you.

You have seen that the greater number of the Linnean
Spheges, {Sphex^ BembeXf F.) after depositing their eggs
in cells stored with a supply of food, take no lurther
care of them. Some, however, adopt a different proce-
dure. One of these, called by Bonnet the Mrt50?i-wa5/^,

AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 357

but different from Reaumur's, not only incloses a living
caterpillar along with its eg^fr in the cell, which it care-
fully closes, but at the expiration of a few days, when the
young grub has appeared and has consumed its provi-
sion, re-opens the nest, incloses a second caterpillar, and
again shuts the mouth : and this operation it repeats un-
til the young one has attained its full growth ^. A simi-
lar mode, according to Ilolander, is followed by Ammo-
pJiila vulgaris as well as by the yellowish wasp of
Pennsylvania, described by Bartram in the Philosophical
Transactions^, and by a Spliex? observed by Duhamel'^ ;
both of which, however, instead of caterpillars, supply
their larvae with a periodical provision of living flies.

What a crowd of interesting reflections are these most
singular facts calculated to excite ! With what foresight
must the parent insect be endowed, thus to be aware at
what period her eggs will be hatched into grubs, and how
long the provision she has laid up will suffice for their
support! What an extent of judgement, thus in the
midst of various other occupations to know the precise
day when a repetition of her cares will be required!
What an accuracy of memory, to recollect with such
precision the entrance to her cell, which the most acute
eye could not discover ; and without compass or direc-
tion unerringly to fly to it, often from a great distance
and after the most intricate and varied wanderings ! If
we refer the whole to instinct, and to instinct doubtless it
must in the main if not wholly be referred, our admira-
tion is not lessened. Instinct, when simple and directed

- Bonnet, ix. 398. " liii. 37 ' Rcaiun. vi. 2f?9.

358 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOK THEIR YOUNG.

to one object, is less astonishing ; but such a compli-
cation of instincts, applied to actions so varied and dissi-
milar, is beyond our conception. We can but wonder
and adore !

We are indebted to De Geer for the history of a field-
bug {Cimex griseus), a species found in this country, which
shows marks of affection for her young such as I trust will
lead you, notwithstanding any repugnant association that
the name may call up, to search upon the birch tree,
which it inhabits, for so interesting an insect. The family
of this field-bug consists of thirty or forty young ones,
which she conducts as a hen does her chickens. She
never leaves them ; and as soon as she begins to move, all
the little ones closely follow, and whenever she stops as-
semble in a cluster round her. De Geer having had oc-
casion to cut a branch of birch peopled with one of those
families, the mother showed every sympton of excessive
uneasiness. In other circumstances such an alarm would
have caused her immediate flight; but now she never
stired from her young, but kept beating her wings inces-
santly with a very rapid motion, evidently for the purpose
of protecting them from the apprehended danger*. — As
far as our knowledge of the economy of this tribe of in-
sects extends, there is no other species that manifests a
similar attachment to its progeny ; but such may proba-
bly be discovered by future observers.

It is De Geer also that we have to thank for a series
of interesting observations on the maternal affection ex-
hibited by the common earwig. This curious insect so
unjustly traduced by a vulgar prejudice, — as if the Crea-
^ Dc Geer, iii. 262.

AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 359

tor had willed that the insect world should comljine with-
in itself examples of all that is most remarkable in every
other department of nature, — still more nearly approaches
the habits of the hen in her care of her family. She
absolutely sits upon her eggs as if to hatch them— a fact
which Frisch appears first to have noticed — and guards
them with the greatest care. De Geer, having found an
earwig thus occupied, removed her into a box where was
some earth, and scattered the eggs in all directions. She
soon, however, collected them one by one v^ith her jaws
into a heap, and assiduously sat upon them as before.
The young ones, which resemble the parent except in
wanting elytra and wings, and, strange to say, are as soon
as born larger than the eggs which contained them, im-
mediately upon being hatched creep like a brood of
chickens under the belly of the mother, who very quietly
suffers them to push between her feet, and will often, as
De Geer found, sit over them in this posture for some
hours*. This remarkable fact I have myself witnessed,
having found an earwig under a stone which I accident-
ally turned over, sitting upon a cluster of young ones just
as this celebrated naturalist has described.

We are so accustomed to associate the ideas of cruelty
and ferocity with the name of spider, that to attribute pa-
rental affection to any of the tribe seems at first view al-
most preposterous. Who indeed could suspect that ani-
mals which greedily devour their own species whenever
they have opportunity, should be susceptible of the
finer feelings ? Yet such is the fact. There is a spider
common under clods of earth {Aranea saccatcty L.) which
* De Geer, iii, 548.

560 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG.

may at once be distinguished by a white globular silken
bag about the size of a pea, in which she has deposited
her eggs, attached to the extremity of her body. Never
miser clung to his treasure with more tenacious solicitude
than this spider to her bag. Though apparently a consi-
derable incumbrance, she carries it with her every where.
If you deprive her of it, she makes the most strenuous ef-
forts for its recovery ; and no personal danger can force
her to quit the precious load. Are her efforts ineffec-
tual? A stupefying melancholy seems to seize her,
and when deprived of this first object of her cares,
existence itself appears to have lost its charms. If she
succeeds in regaining her bag, or you restore it to her,
her actions demonstrate the excess of her joy. She eager-
ly seizes it, and with the utmost agility runs of!" with it to
a place of security. Bonnet put this wonderful attach-
ment to an affecting and decisive test. He threw a spi-
der with her bag into the cavern of a large ant-lion, a
ferocious insect which conceals itself at the bottom of a
conical hole constructed in the sand for the purpose of
catching any unfortunate victim that may chance to fall
in. The spider endeavoured "to run away, but was not
sufficiently active to prevent the ant-lion from seizing her
bag of eggs, which it attempted to pull under the sand.
She made the most violent eflfbrts to defeat the aim of her
invisible foe, and on her part struggled with all her might.
The gluten, however, which fastened her bag, at length
gave way, and it separated : but the spider instantly re-
gained it with her jaws, and redoubled her efforts to re-
scue the prize from her opponent. It was in vain : the
ant-lion was the stronger of the two, and in spite of all

AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 361

her struggles dragged the object ofcontestation under the
sand. The unfortunate mother might have preserved
her own hfe from the enemy : she had but to reHnquish
the bag, and escape out of the pit. But, wonderful ex-
ample of maternal affection ! she preferred allowing her-
self to be bui'ied alive along with the treasure dearer to
her than her existence ; and it was only by force that Bon-
net at length with drew her from the unequal conflict. But
the baff of efffjs remained with the assassin ; and though
he pushed her repeatedly with a twig of wood, she still
persisted in continuing on the spot. Life seemed to have
become a burthen to her, and all her pleasures to have
been buried in the grave which contained the germe of
her progeny ^ ! The attachment of this affectionate mo-
ther is not confined to her eggs. After the young spiders
are hatched, they make their way out of the bag by an
orifice, which she is careful to open for them, and with-
out which they could never escape''; and then, like the
young of the Surinam toad [Ranajnpa), they attach them-
selves in clusters upon her back, belly, head, and even
legs ; and in this situation, where they present a very sin-
gular appearance, she carries them about with her and
feeds them until their first moult^ when they are big
enough to provide their own subsistence. I have more
than once been gratified by a sight of this interesting spec-
tacle ; and when I nearly touched the mother, thus cover-
ed by hundreds of her progeny, it was most amusing to
see them all leap from her back and run away in every
direction.

A similar attachment to then* eggs and young is mani-
^ Bonnet, ii. 435. ^' Dc Gccr, vii. 194.

362 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG.

lested by many other species of the same tribe, particularly
of the genera Lycosa and Dolomeda^ Walck. Aranea holo-
serkea, L. {Clubiona, Walck.) was found by De Geer in
her nest with fifty or sixty young ones, when manifesting
nothing of her usual timidity, so obstinately did she per-
sist in remaining with them, that to drive her away it was
necessary to cut her whole nest in pieces'.

I must now conduct you to a hasty survey of those in-
sects which live together in societies and fabricate dwell-
ings for the community, such as ants, 'wasps, bees, humble-
bees, and termites, whose great object (sometimes combined
indeed with the storing up of a stock of winter provisions
for themselves) is the nutrition and education of their
young. Of the proceedings of many of these insects we
know Comparatively nothing. There are, it is likely,
some hundreds of distinct species of bees which live in so-
cieties, and form nests of a different and peculiar construc-
tion. The constitution of these societies is probably as
various as the exterior forms of their nests, and their ha-
bits possibly curious in the highest degree ; yet our know-
ledge is almost confined to the economy of the hive-bee
and of some species of humble-bees. The same may be
said of wasps, ants, and termites, of which, though there
is a vast variety of different kinds, we are acquainted with
the history of but a very few. You will not therefore
expect more than a sketch of the most interesting traits
of affection for their young, manifested by the common
species of each genus.

One circumstance must be premised with regard to the

^ Dc Cfcer, vii. 268.

AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 363

education of the young of most of those msects wliich Uve
in society, truly extraordinary, and without parallel in
any other department of nature: namely, that this office,
except under particular circumstances, is not undertaken
by the female which has given birth to them, but by the
workers, or neuters as they are sometimes called, which,
though bound to the offspring of the common mother of
the society by no other than fraternal ties, exhibit towards
them all the marks of the most ardent parental affection,
building habitations for their use, feeding them and tend-
ing them with incessant solicitude, and willingly sacrifi-
cing their lives in defence of the precious charge. Thus
sterility itself is made an instrument of the preservation
and multiplication of species ; and females too fruitful to
educate all their young, are indulged by Providence with
a privilege without which nine tenths of their progeny
must perish.

The most determined despiser of insects and their con-
cerns— he who never deigned to open his eyes to any
other part of their economy — must yet have observed,
even in spite of himself, the remarkable attachment which
the inhabitants of a disturbed nest of ants manifest to-
wards certain small white oblong bodies with which it is
usually stored. He must have perceived that the ants are
much less intently occupied with providing for their own
safety, than in carrying off these little bodies to a place of
security. To effect this purpose the whole community is
in motion, and no danger can divert them from attempt-
ing its accomplishment. An observer having cut an ant
in two, the poor mutilated animal did not relax in its af-
fectionate exertions. With that half of the body to which

364- AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG,

the head remained attached, it contrived previously to ex-
piring to carry off ten of these white masses into the inte-
rior of the nest ! You will readily divine that these attrac-
tive objects are the young of the ants in one of the first or
imperfect states. They are in fact not the eggs, as they are
vulgarly called, but the pupae, which the working ants tend
with the most patient assiduity. But I must give you a
more detailed account of their operations, beginning with
the actual eggs.

These, which are so small as to be scarcely visible to
the naked eye, as soon as deposited by the queen ant, who
drops them at random in her progress through the nest,
are taken charge of by the workers, who immediately seize
them and carry them in their mouths, in small parcels,
incessantly turning them backwards and forwards with
their tongue for the purpose of moistening them, without
which they would come to nothing. They then lay them
in heaps, which they place in separate apartments =*, and
constantly tend until hatched into larvEe ; frequently in
the course of the day removing them fi'om one quarter of
the nest to another, as they require a warmer or cooler,
a moister or drier atmosphere ; and at mtervals brooding
over them as if to impart a genial warmth ^. Experiments
have been made to ascertain whether these assiduous
nurses could distinguish their eggs if intermixed with
particles of salt and sugar, which to an ordinary observer
they very much resemble ; but the result was constantly in
favour of the sagacity of the ants. They invariably se-
lected the eggs from whatever materials they were mixed
with, and re-arranged them as before*^.

« Hubcr, ()[». '' Dc Gccr, ii. 109P. ^ Gould, 37.

AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 365

New and more severe labours succeed the birdi of die
young grubs which are disclosed from die eggs after a
few days. The working ants are now almost without re-
mission engaged in supplying their wants and forwarding
their growth. Every evening an hour before sunset they
regularly remove the whole brood, as well as the eggs and
pupa?, which in an old nest all require attention at the
same time, to cells situated lower down in the earth, where
they will be safe from the cold ; and in the morning they
as constantly remove them again towards the surface of
the nest. If, however, there is a prospect of cold or wet
weather, the provident ants forbear on that day transport-
ing their young from the inner cells, aware that their ten-
der frames are unable to withstand an inclement sky. What
is particularly worthy of notice in this herculean task, the
ants constantly regulate their proceedings by the sun, re-
moving their young accordmg to the earlier or later
rising and setting of that luminary. As soon as his first
rays begin to shine on the exterior of the nest, the ants
that are at the top go below in great haste to rouse their
companions, whom they strike with their antennae, or,
when they do not seem to comprehend them, drag with
their jaws to the summit till a swarm of busy labourers
fill every passage. These take up the larvae and pupse,
which they hastily transport to the upper part of their ha-
bitation, where they leave them a quarter of an hour, and
then carry them into apartments where they are shelter-
ed from the sun's direct rays *.

Severe as this constant and unremitted daily labour
seems, it is but a small part of what the affection of the
» H«ber, 74.

366 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG.

working ants leads them readily to undertake. The Jeed-
ing of the young brood, which rests solely upon them, is
a more serious charge. The nest is constantly stored
with larvai the year round, during all which time, except
in winter when the whole society is torpid, they require
feeding several times a day with a viscid half-digested
fluid that the workers disgorge into their mouths, which
when hungry they stretch out to meet those of their nurses.
Add to which, that in an old nest there are generally two
distinct broods of different ages requiring separate atten-
tion ; and that the observations of Huber make it proba-
ble that at one period they require a more substantial
food than at another. It is true that the youngest brood
at first want but little nutriment : but still, when we con-
sider that they must not be neglected, that the older brood
demand incessant supplies, and in a well stocked nest
amount to 7 or 8000 ; and that the task of satisfying all
these cravings, as well as providing for their own subsist-
ence, falls to the lot of the working ants, we are almost
ready to regard the burthen as greater than can be borne
by such mmute agents ; and we shall not wonder at the
incessant activity with which we see them foraging on
every side.

Their labour does not end here. It is necessary that
the larvae should be kept extremely clean ; and for this
purpose the ants are perpetually passing their tongue and
mandibles over their body, rendering them by this means
perfectly white*. After the young grubs have attained
their full growth, they surround themselves with a silken
cocoon and become pupae, which, food excepted, require

» Huber, 78.

AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 367

as much attention as in the hirva state. Every morning
they are transported from the bottom of the nest to the
surface, and every evening returned to their former quar-
ters. And if, as is often the case, the nest be tin-own into
ruins by the unlucky foot ofa passing animal, in addition
to all these daily and hourly avocations, is superadded
the immediate necessity of collecting the pupae from the
earth with which they have been mixed, and of restoring
the nest to its pristine state*.

Nothing can be more curious than the view of the in-
terior of a fully peopled ants' nest in summer. In one
part are stored the eggs ; in another the pupae are heaped
up by hundreds in spacious apartments ; and in a third
we see the larvae surrounded by the workers, some of
which feed them, while others keep guard, standing erect
upon their hind legs with their abdomen elevated in the
position for ejaculating their acid, than which, gunpow-
der would not be more formidable to the majority of
their foes. Some again are occupied in cleaning the
alleys from obstructions of various kinds ; and others
rest in perfect repose recruiting their strength for new
labours.

Contrary to what is observed amongst other insects,
even the extrication of the young ants from the silken co-

* The Russian shepherds ingeniously avail themselves of the at-
tachment of ants to their young, for obtaining with little trouble a col-
lection of the pupae, which they sell as a dainty food for nightin-
gales. They scatter an ants' nest upon a dry plot of ground, sur-
rounded with a shallow trench of water, and place on one side of it
a few fir branches. Under these the ants, having no other alterna-
tive, carefully arrange all their pupae, and in an hour or two the shep-
herd finds a large heap cleaa and ready for market. Anderson's Re-
creatiomin Agriculture, Sfc. iv. 158.

368 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG.

coon which incloses them is imposed upon the workers,
who are taught by some sensation to us incomprehensi-
ble, that the perfect insect is now ready to burst from
the shroud, but too weak to effect its purpose unaided.
When the workers discover that this period has arrived,
a great bustle prevails in their apartment. Three or
four mount upon one cocoon, and with their mandibles
begin to open it where the head lies. First they pull off
a few threads to render the place thinner ; they then
make several small openings, and with great patience
cut the threads which separate them one by one, till an
orifice is formed sufficiently large for extracting the pri-
soner ; which operation they perform with the utmost
gentleness. The ant is still enveloped in its pellicle ; this
the workers also pull off, carefully disengaging every
member from its case, and nicely expanding the wings
of such as are furnished with them. After thus liberat-
ing and afterwards feeding the new-born insects, they
still for several days watch and follow them every where,
teaching them to unravel the paths and winding laby-
rinths of the common habitation* ; and when the males
and females at length take flight, these affectionate step-
mothers accompany them, mounting with them to the
summit of the highest herbs, showing the most tender
solicitude for them, (some even endeavour to retain them,)
feeding them for the last time, caressing them ; and at
length, when they rise into the air and disappear, seem-
ing to linger for some seconds over the footsteps of these
favoured beings, of whom they have taken such exem-
plary care, and whom they will never behold again ^.
» Huber, 83. "^ Ibid. 93.

AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG, S69

In the above account, exclusive of the bare fact of theii'
hiyhig the eggs, no mention is made of the female ants,
the real parents of the republic. You are not from this
to suppose that they never feel the influence of this di-
vine principle of love for their offspring. When, indeed,
a colony is established and peopled, they have enough
to do to furnish it w^ith eggs to produce its necessary
supply of future females, males and workers ; which, ac-
cording to Gould, are laid at three different seasons*.
This is the ordinary duty assigned to them by Provi-
dence. Yet at the first formation of a nest, the female
acts the kind part, and performs all the maternal offices
which I have just described as peculiar to the workers ;
and it is only when these become sufficiently numerous
to relieve her, that she resigns this charge and devotes
herself exclusively to oviposition ''.

There is one circumstance occurring at this period of
their history, which affords a very affecting example of
the self-denial and self-devotion of these admirable crea-
tures. If you have paid any attention to what is going
forward in an ant-hill, you will have observed some larger
than the rest, which at first sight appear, as well as the
workers, to have no wings, but which upon a closer ex-
amination exhibit a small portion of their base, or the
sockets in which they were inserted. These are females
that have cast their wings, not accidentally but by a
voluntary act. When an ant of this sex first emerges from
the pupa, she is adorned with two pair of wings, the up-
per or outer pair being larger than her body. With

» p. 35. " Htiber, 110.

VOL. I. 2 B

370 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG.

these, wlien a virgin, she is enabled to traverse the fields
of ether, surrounded by myriads of the other sex, who
are candidates for her favour. But when once connu-
bial rigljits are celebrated the unhappy husband dies, and
the widowed bride seeks only how she may provide for
their mutual offspring. Panting no more to join the choir
of aerial dancers, her only thought is to construct a sub-
terranean abode in which she may deposit and attend
to her eggs, and cherish her embryo young, till, having
passed through their various changes, they arrive at their
perfect state, and she can devolve upon them a portion
of her maternal cares. Her ample wings, which before
were her chief ornament and the instruments of her plea-
sure, are now an incumbrance which incommode her in
the fulfilment of the great duty uppermost in her mind ;
she therefore, without a moment's hesitation, plucks them
from her shoulders. Might we not then address females
who have families, in words like those of Solomon, " Go
to the ant, ye mothers, consider her ways and be wise ? "

M. P. Huber was more than once witness to this pro-
ceeding. He saw one female stretch her wings with a
strong effort so as to brmg them before her head — she
then crossed them in all directions — next she reversed
them alternately on each side — at last, in consequence of
some violent contortions, the four wings fell at the same
moment in his presence. Another, in addition to these
motions, used her legs to assist in the work ^.

* Huber, 109. — Gould had long before Huber observed that fe-
male ants cast their wings, pp. 59, 62, 64. I have frequently ob-
served them, sometimes with only one wing, at others with only frag-
ments of the wings ; and again, at others they were so completely

AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 371

Thus, from the very moment of the extrusion of the
egg to the maturity of the perfect insect, are the ants
unremittingly occupied in tlie care of the young of the
society, and that with an ardour of affectionate attach-
ment to which, when its intensity and duration are taken
into the account, we may fairly say there is nothing pa-
rallel in the whole animal world *. Amongst birds and
quadrupeds we have instances of affection as strong per-
haps while it lasts, but how much shorter the period du-
ring which it is exerted 1 In a month or two the young
of the former require no further attention ; and if in a
state of nature some of the latter give suck to their off-
spring for a longer period, it is on their parts without
effort or labour ; and in both cases the time given up to
their young forms a very small part of the life of the ani-
mal. But the little insects in question not only spend a
greater portion of time in the education of their progeny,
but devote even the whole of their existence, from their
birth to their death, to this one occupation !

The common hive-bee and the wasp in their attention
to their young exhibit the same general features. Both
build for their reception hexagonal cells, differing in size
according to the future sex of the included grubs, which
as soon as hatched they both feed and assiduously tend
until their transformation into pupae. There are pecu-
liarities, however, in their modes of procedure, which re-
quire a distinct notice.

The economy of a nest of wasps differs from that of

pulled off, that it could not be known that they formerly had them,
only by the sockets in which they were inserted.
» Huber,93.

2 B 2

372 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG.

bees, in that the eggs are laid not by a single mother or
queen, but by several ; and that these mothers take the
same care as the workers in feeding the young grubs:
indeed those first hatched are fed entirely by the female
which produced them, the solitary founder of the colony.
The sole survivor probably of a last year's swarm of many
thousands, this female, as soon as revived by the warmth
of spring, proceeds to construct a few cells, and deposits
in them tlie eggs of working wasps. The eggs are co-
vered with a gluten, which fixes them so strongly against
the sides of the cells, that it is not easy to separate them
unbroken. These eggs seem to require care from the
time they are laid, for the wasps many times in a day
put their heads into the cells which contain them. When
they are hatched, it is amusing to witness the activity
with which the female runs from cell to cell, putting her
head into those in which the grubs are very young, while
those that are more advanced in age thrust their heads
out of their cells, and by little movements seem to be
asking for their food. As soon as they receive their por-
tion, they draw them back and remain quiet. These she
feeds until they become pupa3 ; and within twelve hours
after being excluded in their perfect state, they eagerly
set to work in constructing fresh cells, and in lightening
the burthen of their parent by assisting her in feeding
the grubs of other workers and females which are by this
time born. In a few weeks the society will have received
an accession of several hundred workers and many females,
which without distinction apply themselves to provide
food for the growing grubs, now become exceedingly nu-
merous. With this object in view, as they collect little

AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 373

or no honey from flowers, they are constantly engaged
in predatory expeditions. One party will attiick a hive
of bees, a grocer's sugar hogshead, or otlier saccharine
repository ; or, if these fail, the juice of a ripe peach or
pear. You will be less indignant than formerly at these
audacious robbers now you know that self is little con-
sidered in their attacks, and that your ravaged fruit has
supplied an exquisite banquet to the most tender grubs
of the nest, into whose extended mouths the successful
marauders, running with astonishing agility from one cell
to another, disgorge successively a small portion of their
booty in the same way that a bird supplies her young*.
Another party is charged with providing more substan-
tial aliment for the grub$ of maturer growth. These wage
war upon bees, flies, and even the meat of a butcher's
stall, and joyfully return to the nest laden with the well-
filled bodies of the former, or pieces of the latter as
large as they can carry. This solid food they distribute
in like manner to the larger grubs, which may be seen
eagerly protruding their heads out of the cells to receive
the welcome meal. As wasps lay up no store of food,
these exertions are the task of every day during the sum-
mer, fresh broods of grubs constantly succeeding to those
which have become pupae or perfect insects ; and in au-
tumn, when the colony is augmented to 20 or 30,000,
and the grubs in proportion, the scene of bustle which
it presents may be readily conceived.

Though such is the love of wasps for their young, that
if their nest be broken almost entirely in pieces they will

* See Williiffhbv in Rai. Hist. Ins. 251. and ReauiH.

374- AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG.

not abandon it', yet when the cold weather approaches,
a melancholy change ensues, followed by a cruel cata-
strophe, which at first you will be apt to regard as ill
comporting with this affectionate character. As soon as
the first sharp frost of October has been felt, the exterior
of a wasp's nest becomes a perfect scene of horror. The
old wasps drag out of the cells all the grubs and unre-
lentingly destroy them, strewing their dead carcases
around the door of their now desolate habitation. " What
monsters of cruelty !" I hear you exclaim, " what de-
testable barbarians ! " But be not too hasty. When you
have coolly considered the circumstances of the case, you
will view this seemingly cruel sacrifice in a different light.
The old wasps have no stock of provisions: the benumb-
ing hand of winter is about to incapacitate them from ex-
ertion; while the season itself affords no supply. What
resource then is left? Their young must linger on a
short period, suffering all the agonies of hunger, and at
length expire. They have it in their power at least to
shorten the term of this misery — to cut off its bitterest
moments. A sudden death by their own hands is com-
paratively a merciful stroke. This is the only alterna-
tive ; and thus, in fact, this apparent ferocity is the last
effort of tender affection, active even to the end of life.
I do not mean to say that this train of reasoning actually
passes through the mind of the wasps. It is more cor-
rect to regard it as having actuated the benevolent Au-
thor of the instinct so singularly, and without doubt so
wisely, excited. Were a nest of wasps to survive the

» Reaum. vi. 17'1.

AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIE YOUNG. 375

winter, they would increase so rapidly, that not only
would all the bees, flies, and other animals on which they
prey, be extirpated, but man himself find them a grievous
pest. It is necessary, therefore, that the great mass should
annually perish ; but that they may suffer as little as pos-
sible, the Creator, mindful of the happiness of the smallest
of his creatures, has endowed a part of the society, at the
destined time, with the wonderful instinct which, pre-
viously to their own death, makes them the executioners
of the rest.

Wasps in the construction of their nests have solely
in view the accommodation of their young ones ; and to
these their cells are exclusively devoted. Bees, on the
contrary, (I am speaking of the common hive-bee,) ap-
propriate a considerable number of their cells to the re-
ception of honey intended for the use of the society. Yet
the education of the young brood is their chief object,
and to this they constantly sacrifice all personal and sel-
fish considerations. In a new swarm the first care is to
build a series of cells to serve as cradles ; and little or
no honey is collected until an ample store of bee-bread^
as it is called, has been laid up for their food. This bee-
bread is composed of the pollen of flowers, which the
workers are incessantly employed in gathering, flying
from flower to flower, brushing from the stamens their
yellow treasure, and collecting it in the little baskets with
which their hind legs are so admirably provided ; then
hastening to the hive, and having deposited their booty,
returning for a new load. The provision thus furnished
by one set of laboin"ers is carefully stored up by another,
imtil the eggs which the queen-bee has laid, and which

376 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG.

adhering by a glutinous covering she places nearly up-
right in the bottom of the cell, are hatched. With this
bee-bread after it has undergone a conversion into a sort
of whitish jelly by being received into the bee's stomach,
where it is probably mixed with honey * and regurgitated,
the young brood immediately upon their exclusion, and
until their change into nymphs, are diligently fed by
other bees, which anxiously attend upon them and seve-
ral times a day afford a fresh supply. Different bees are
seen successively to introduce their heads into the cells
containing them, and after remaining in that position
some moments, during which they replace the expended
provision, pass on to those in the neighbourhood. Others
often immediately succeed, and in like manner put in
their heads as if to see that the young ones have every
thing necessary ; which being ascertained by a glance,
they immediately proceed, and stop only when they find
a cell almost exhausted of food. That the office of these
purveyors is no very simple affair will be admitted, when
it is understood that the food of all the grubs is not the
same, but that it varies according to their age, being in-
sipid when they are young, and, when they have nearly
attained maturity, more sugary and somewhat acid. The
larvae destined for queen-bees, too, recjuire a food alto-
gether different from that appropriated to those of drones
and workers. It may be recognised by its sharp and
pungent taste.

So accurately is the supply of food proportioned to

■* It is not unlikely that it may undergo some other alteration in
t)ie bee's stomach, wliich may possibly secrete some peculiar sub-
stance, as John Hunter discovered that the crop of the pigeon does.

AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 3Y7

the wants of the larvae, that when they have attained
their full growth and are ready to become nymphs, not
an atom is left unconsumed. At this period, intuitively
known to their assiduous foster-parents, they terminate
their cares by sealing up each cell with a lid of wax,
convex in those containing the larvae of drones, and nearly
flat in those containing the larvae of workers, beneath
which the inclosed tenants spin in security their cocoon.
— In all these labours neither the queen nor the drones
take the slightest share. They fall exclusively upon the
workers, who, constantly called upon to tend fresh broods,
as those brought to maturity are disposed of, devote
nearly the whole of their existence to these maternal of-
fices.

Humhlc-hecs^, which in respect of their general policy
must, when compared with bees and wasps, be regarded
as rude and untutored villagers, exhibit nevertheless marks
of affection to their young quite as strong as their more
polished neighbours. The females, like those of wasps,
take a considerable share in their education. When one
of them has with great labour constructed a commodious
waxen cell, she next furnishes it with a store of pollen
moistened with honey ; and then having deposited six or
seven eggs, carefully closes the orifice and minutest in*
terstices with wax. But this is not the whole of her task.
By a strange instinct, which, however, may be necessary
to keep the population within due bounds, the workers,

* Dr. Johnson was ignorant of the etymology of this word. It is
clearly derived from the German Hummel or Hummel Biene, a name
probably given it from its sound. Our English name would be more
significant were it altered to Humviins-bee or Boomhia-bce.

378 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG.

while she is occupied in laying her eggs, endeavour to
seize them from her, and, if they succeed, greedily devour
them. To prevent this violence, her utmost activity is
scarcely adequate ; and it is only after she has again and
again beat off the murderous intruders and pursued them
to the furthest verge of the nest, that she succeeds in her
operation. When finished, she is still under the neces-
sity of closely guarding the cell, which the gluttonous
workers would otherwise tear open, and devour the eggs.
This duty she performs for six or eight hours with the
vigilance of an Argus, at the end of which time they lose
their taste for this food, and will not touch it even when
presented to them. Here the labours of the mother
cease, and are succeeded by those of the workers. These
know the precise hour when the grubs have consumed
their stock of food, and from that time to their maturity
regularly feed them with either honey or pollen, intro-
duced in their proboscis through a small hole in the co-
ver of the cell opened for the occasion and then care-
fully closed.

They are equally assiduous in another operation. As
the grubs increase in size the cell which contained them
becomes too small, and in their exertions to be more at
ease they split its thin sides. To fill up these breaches
as fast as they occur with a patch of wax, is the office of
the workers, who are constantly on the watch to discover
when their services are wanted ; and thus the cells daily
increase in size, in a way which to an observer ignorant
of the process seems very extraordinary.

The last duty of these affectionate foster-parents is to
assist the young bees in cutting open the cocoons which

AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 379

have inclosed them in the state oipupcB. A previous la-
bour hovs^ever must not be omitted. The workers adopt
similar measures with the hive-bee for maintaining the
young pupae concealed in these cocoons in a genial tem-
perature. In cold weather and at night they get upon
them and impart the necessary warmth by brooding over
them in clusters. Connected with this part of their
domestic economy, M. P. Huber, a worthy scion of a
celebrated stock, and an inheritor of the science and me-
rits of the great Huber as well as of his name, in his ex-
cellent paper on these insects in the sixth volume of the
Linnean Transactions, from which most of these facts are
dravm, relates a singularly curious anecdote.

In the course of his ingenious and numerous experi-
ments, M. Huber put under a bell-glass about a dozen
humble-bees without any store of wax, along with a comb
of about ten silken cocoons so unequal in height that it
was impossible the mass should stand firmly. Its un-
steadiness disquieted the humble-bees extremely. Their
affection for their young led them to mount upon the co-
coons for the sake of imparting warmth to the inclosed
little ones, but in attempting this the comb tottered so
violently that the scheme was almost impracticable. To
remedy this inconvenience, and to make the comb steady,
they had recourse to a most ingenious expedient. Two
or three bees got upon the comb, stretched themselves
over its edge, and with their heads downwards fixed
their fore feet on the table upon which it stood, whilst
with their hind feet they kept it from falling. In this
constrained and painful posture, fresh bees relieving their
comrades when weary, did these afiectionate little insects

380 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR, THEIR YOUNG.

support the comb for nearly three days ! At the end
of this period they had prepared a sufficiency of wax
with which they built pillars that kept it in a firm posi-
tion : but by some accident afterwards these got dis-
placed, when they had again recourse to their former
manoeuvre for supplying their place, and this operation
they perseveringly continued until M. Huber, pitying
their hard case, relieved them by fixing the object of
their attention firmly on the table*.

It is impossible not to be struck with the reflection
that this most singular fact is inexplicable on the suppo-
sition that insects are impelled to their operations by a
blind instinct alone. How could mere machines have
thus provided for a case which in a state of nature has
probably never occurred to ten nests of humble-bees
since the creation ? If in this instance tliese little ani-
mals were not guided by a process of reasoning, what
is the distinction between reason and instinct? How
could the most profound architect have better adapted
tlie means to the end — how more dexterously shored up
a tottering edifice, until his beams and his props were in
readiness ?

With respect to the operations of the iermifes in rear-
ing their young I have not much to observe. All that
is known is, that they build commodious cells for their
reception, into which the eggs of the queen are conveyed
by the workers as soon as laid, and where wlien hatched
they are assiduously fed by them until they are able to
provide for themselves.

" Limi. Trans. \\. 247 Sec.

AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 381

In concluding this subject, it may not be superfluous
to advert to an objection which is sometimes thrown out
against regarding with any particular sympathy the af-
fection of the lower animals to their young, on the ground
that this feeling is in them the result of corporeal sen-
sation only, and wholly different from that love which
human parents feel for their offspring. It is true that
the latter involves moral considerations which cannot
have place in the brute creation ; but it would puzzle
such objectors to explain in what respect the affection
which a mother feels for her new-born infant the mo-
ment it has seen the light, differs from that of an insect
for its progeny. The affection of both is purely physi-
cal, and in each case springs fi'om sensations interwoven
by the Creator in the constitution of his creatures. If
the parental love of the former is worthy of our tendei-
est sympathies, that of the latter cannot be undeserving
of some portion of similar feeling.

I am, ^ic.

LETTER XTI.

ON THE FOOD OF INSECTS.

Insects like other animals draw their j^oc? from the
vegetable and animal kingdoms ; but a very slight survey
will suffice to show that they enjoy a range over far
more extensive territories.

To begin with the vegetable kingdom. — Of this vast
field the larger animals are confined to a comparatively
small portion. Of the thousands of plants which clothe
the face of the earth, when we have separated the grasses
and a trifling number of herbs and shrubs, the rest are
disgusting to them, if not absolute poisons. But how
infinitely more plenteous is the feast to which Flora in-
vites the insect tribes ! From the gigantic banyan which
covers acres with its shade, to the tiny fimgus scarcely
visible to the naked eye, the vegetable creation is one
vast banquet at which her insect guests sit down. Per-
haps not a single plant exists which does not afford a
delicious food to some insect, not excluding even those
most nauseous and poisonous to other animals — the acrid
euphorbias, and the lurid henbane and nightshade. Nor
is it a presumptuous supposition that a considerable pro-
portion of these vegetables were created expressly for
their entertainment and support. The common nettle

FOOD OF INSECTS. 383

is of little use either to mankind or the larger animals,
but you will not doubt its importance to the class of in-
sects, when told that at least thirty distinct species feed
upon it. But this is not all. The larger herbivorous
animals are confined to a foliaceous or farinaceous diet.
They can subsist on no other part of a plant than its
leaves and seeds, either in a recent or dried state, with
the addition sometimes of the tender twigs or bark.
Not so the insect race ; to different tribes of which every
part of a plant supplies appropriate food. Some attack
its roots ; others select the trunk and branches ; a third
class feed upon the leaves ; a fourth with yet more deli-
cate appetite prefer the flowers ; and a fifth the fruit or
seeds. Even still further selection takes place. Of those
which feed upon the roots, stem, and branches, of vege-
tables, some larvae eat only the bark [Sphiiix ajjiformis,
&c.), others the alburnum {Tortrix Woeberana\ others
the exuding resinous or other excretions \Tinea Resi-
7iella), a third class the pith {Noctua Ochraceago, Lep.
Brit), and a fourth penetrate into the heart of the solid
wood [Cerambyces). Of those which prefer the leaves,
some taste nothing but the sap which fills their veins
{Aphides in all their states), others eat only the paren-
chyma, never touching the cuticle (subcutaneous Tine{E\
others only the lower surface of the leaf (many Tortrices\
while a fourth description devour the whole substance of
the leaf (most Lepidoptera). And of the flower-feeders,
while some eat the very petals {Noctua Verhasciy Linaria:,
&c.), others in their perfect state select the pollen which
swells the anthers (bees, Leptura;^ and Mordellce), and a
still larger class of these the honey secreted in the

38i FOOD OF INSECTS.

nectaries (most of the Lejndopiera, Hymenoptera^ and
Diptera),

Nor are insects confined to vegetables in their recent
or unmanufactured state. A beam of oak when it has
supported the roof of a castle five hundred years, is as
much to the taste of some, [Anohia,) as the same tree
was in its growing state to that of others ; another class
{Piini) would sooner feast on the herbarium of Brunfel-
sius, than on the greenest herbs that grow ; and a third
( Tmetey Termites), to whom

" a river and a sea

Are a dish of tea.

And a kingdom bread and butter,"

would prefer the geographical treasures of Saxton or
Speed, in spite of their ink and alum, to the freshest rind
of the flax plant. — The larva of a little fly {Musca cella-
ris P L. Ohwpota cellaris, Kirby), whose economy, as I
can witness from my own observations, is admirably de-
scribed by Mentzelius*, disdains to feed on any thing but
wine or beer, which like Boniface in the play it may be
said both to eat and drink, though, unlike its toping
counterpart, indifferent to the age of its liquor, which
whether sweet or sour is equally acceptable.

A diversity of food almost as great may be boasted by
the insects which feed on animal substances. Some
(flesh-flies, carrion-beetles, &c.) devour dead carcases
only, which they will not touch until mibued with the
haul gout of putridity. Others, like Mr. Bruce's Abys-
sinians, preferring their meat before it has passed through

=• Ephem. German. An xii. Obs. 58. Rai. Hist. Lis. 261.

FOOD OF INSECTS. 385

tlie liands ol' the butcher, select it iVoin Uving victims,
and may with justice pride themselves ujjon the peculiar
freshness of their diet. Of these last, diflerent tribes
follow different procedures. The Ichneumons devour
the flesh of the insects into which they have insinuated
themselves. Some of the CEstri, fixed in a spacious
apartment beneath the skin of an ox or deer, regale
themselves on a purulent secretion with which they are
surrounded. Others of the same tribe, partial to a higher
temperature, attach themselves to the interior of the sto-
mach of a horse, and in a bath of chvme of 102 deerees
of Fahrenheit revel on its juices. The various species
of horse-flies ( Tahanus and Stomoxys^ F.) dart their shai-p
lancets into the veins of quadrupeds, and satiate them-
selves in living streams ; while the gnat, the flea, the bug,
and the louse, plunge their proboscis even into those of
us lords of the creation, and banquet on " the ruddy
drops which warm our hearts." Some make their re-
past upon birds only, as the fly of the swallow, and other
Ornithomyice^ Latr., and the bird-louse [Nirmus, Hei'm.);
insects nearly allied, though one is dipterous and the
other apterous. And a most singular animal belonging
to the latter tribe {Nycteribia Vespertilio7iis, Latr.) re-
venges upon the bat its ravages of the insect world ^.
Another numerous class kill their prey outright, either
devouring its solid parts, as the Carahidce^ Staphyli-
nidce^ &c., or imbibing its juices only, as the infinite
hordes of the field-bug tribe. And the larvae of the gnat,
Stratyomys, and other flies aquatic in that state, the le-
viathans of the world of animalcules, swallow whole hosts
■» Linn. Trans, xi. 11. t. .3./. 5—7.

VOL. r. 2 c

386 FOOD OF INSECTS.

of these minute Inhabitants of pools and ponds at a gulp,
causing with their oral apparatus a vortex in the water,
down which mjTiads of victims are incessantly hurried
into their destructive maw.

But not only animals themselves, almost every animal
substance that can be named is the appropriate food of
some insect. Multitudes find ^ delicious nutriment in
excrements of various kinds. Matters apparently so in-
digestible as hair, wool, and leather, are the sole food of
many moths in the larva state ( Tinea tapetzella, pellio-
nella, due). Even feathers are not rejected by others ;
and the grub of a beetle (Bi/n/ms Mus(£orumy L.), with
powers of stomach which the dyspeptic sufferer may
envy, will live luxuriously upon horn*.

For the most part, insects feeding upon animal sub-
stances will not touch vegetables, and vice versa. You must
not however take the rule without exceptions. Many
caterpillars (as those of Noctua derasa^ Delphinii, &c.),
though plants are their proper food, will occasionally
devour other caterpillars, and sometimes even their own
species. The large green grass-hopper [Locusta viridis-
sima, F.), and probably others of the order, will eat
smaller insects as well as its usual vegetable food'' ; so
also will the larvae of many Pliryganece. Tenihredo mar-
ginella, F., as I was last summer amused by witnessing,
like many Scatophag^s, sips the nectar of umbelliferous
plants only till a fly comes within its reach, pouncing
upon which it gladly quits its vegetable for an animal
repast. Pti?ius rubellus, Ent. Brit., which ordinarily feeds
upon wood, was, as I before mentioned, once found by

» De Geer, iv. 210. '' Brahni, Insekten Kalender, i. 190.

FOOD OF INSECTS. 387

Mr. Sheppard in great abundance living upon the dried
Cantharides [Lyfta vesicatoria) of the shops. On the
other hand, Necropkorus viortuorum, which subsists on
carcases, and many other carnivorous species, will make
a hearty meal of a putrid fungus ; Ptinus Fur devours in-
differently dried birds or plants, not refusing even to-
bacco ; and from the impossibility that one of a million
of the innumerable swarms of gnats which abound in
swampy places, particularly in regions which but for
them would be lost to sensitive existence, should ever
taste blood, it seems clear that they are usually contented
with vegetable aliment. Indeed the males, as well as
those of Tabanus of which even the females readily im-
bibed the sugared fluid offered to them by Reaumur^,
never suck blood at all ; so that they must either feed on
vegetable matter, which in fact I have observed them to do,
or fast during their whole existence in the perfect state.

Though insects, generally considered, have thus a
much more extensive bill of fare than the larger animals,
each individual species is commonly limited to a more
restricted diet. Many both of animal and vegetable
feeders are absolutely confined to one kind of food, and
cannot exist upon any other. The larva of QJlstrus Equi
can subsist no where but in the stomach of the horse or
ass, wliich animals therefore this insect might boast with
some show of reason to have been created for its use
rather than for ours, being to us useful only, but to it
indispensable. The larvas ofSj/rphus Pyrastri [Musca, L.)
according to De Geer eat no other Aphis but that of the
rose^. Most Ichneumons and Spheges prey each upon
" Reaum. iv. 280. '^ De Geer, vi. 112.

2 c 2

388 FOOD OF INSECTS.

a single species of insect only, which therefore they would
seem to have been formed for the express purpose of
keeping within due limits. Reaumur mentions having
once found in a parcel of decaying wood the nests of six
different kinds of Sphex, each of which was filled with
flies of a distinct species^. Cerceris ovritus, Latr., and
Philanthus latus^ Panz., ui the larva state feed solely on
the Curculio tribe of ColeopterUy the latter being restrict-
ed even to the short-rostrum'd family, as C. picipcs, rau-
ciis, &C.'', while Bembex rostrata^ another hymenopte-
rous insect, selects flies, as Musca Casar, &c. "^

A very large proportion of species, however, are able
to subsist on several kinds of food. Amongst the carni-
vorous tribes, it is indifferent to most of those which prey
upon putrid substances from what source they have been
derived : and the predaceous genera, such as Libellula,
Canthai'is, Empis, Aranea, &c. will attack most smaller
insects inferior to them in strength, not excepting in
many instances their own species. The wax-moth larva
{Galleria Cereana) will for want of wax eat paper, wafers,
wool, Scc."^: another Tinea described by Reaumur, and
before adverted to, attacks chocolate % which cannot have
been its natural food, even selecting that most highly
perfumed ; and the Tineae which devour dressed wool,
but happily for the farmer and wool-stapler refuse it
when unwashed, must have existed when no manufac-
tured wool was accessible. — The vegetable feeders are

» Reauni. vi, 271.

*• Entomologhclic BcnicrJ,i(ngen{Yiv7i\\\\sc\\V!e\g 1799), p. C.
*■ Latreille, Oi.s. siir /rs Hynienupteres, Ann. dc Mux, xiv. 41,'?.
** Reaimi. iii. '237- ' Ibid. iii. 977-

FOOD OF INSECTS. 389

under greater restrictions, yet probably the majority can
subsist on different kinds of food. This is certainly true
of most lepidopterous larvae, several of which as well as
many Coleoptcra [Haltica oleracea^ &c.) are polyphagous,
eating almost every plant. It is worthy of remark, how-
ever, that when some of these have fed for a time on one
plant they will die rather than eat another, which would
have been perfectly acceptable to them if accustomed to
it from the first*. Here too it must be borne in mind,
that by far the greater part of insects feed upon different
substances in their different states of existence, eating
one kind of food in the larva and another in the imago
state. This is the case with the whole order Lepidopte-
ra, which in the former eat plants chiefly, in the latter
nothing but honey or the sweet juices of fruit, which they
have often been observed to imbibe ; and the same rule
obtains also in regard to most dipterous and hymenopte-
rous insects. Those which eat one kind of food in both
states, are chiefly of the remaining orders.

I have said that insects, like other animals, draw their
subsistence from the vegetable or animal kingdoms. But
I ought not to omit iioticiim- that some authors have con-
ceived that several species feed upon mineral substances.
Not to dwell upon Barchewitz's idle tale of East Indian
ants which eat iron'', or on the stone-eating caterpillars
recorded in the Memoirs of the French Academy'^, which
are now known to erode the walls on which they are
found, solely for the purpose of forming their cocoons ;
Reaumur and Swammerdam have both stated the food
of the larvae of Ephemcrcc to be earth, that being the
only substance ever found in their stomachs and in-
^ Reaum.ii. 324. <■ Lesser, L. i . 239. ^' x. 4fj8.

390 FOOD OF INSECTS.

testines which are filled with it. This supposition, which
if correct renders invalid the definition by which Mirbel
(and my friend Dr. Alderson of Hull long before him)
proposed to distinguish the animal and vegetable king-
doms, is certainly not inadmissible ; for, though we might
not be inclined to give much weight to Father Paulian's
history of a flint-eater who digested flints and stone *, the
testimony of Humboldt seems to prove that the human
race is capable of drawing nutriment from earth, which,
if the odious Ottomaques can digest and assimilate, may
doubtless afford support to the larvae of Ephemerae. Yet
after all it is perhaps more probable that these insects
feed on the decaying vegetable matter intermixed with
the earth in which they reside, from which after being
swallowed it is extracted by the action of the stomach :
like the sand that, from being found in a sunilar situ-
ation, Borelli erroneously supposed to be the food of
many Testacea, though in fact a mere extraneous sub-
stance.

The majority of insects, either imbibing their food in
a liquid state, or feeding on succulent substances, require
no aqueous fluid for diluting it. Water, however, is es-
sential to bees, ants, and some other tribes, which drink
it with avidity ; as well as in warm climates to many Le-
jndoptera, which are there chiefly taken in court yards,
near the margins of drains, &c. Even some larvae which
feed upon juicy leaves have been observed to swallow
drops of dew ; and one of them [Bombyx jwtatoyia), which
(according to Goedart) after drinking lifts up its head
like a hen, has received its name from this circumstance.
That it is not the mere want of succulency in the food

* Diclionnaire Phi/sKjur.

rOOD OF INSECTS. 391

which induces the necessity of drink, is plain from those
larvae which live entirely on substances so dry that it is
almost unaccountable whence the juices of their body are
derived. The grub of an Anobium {Ptinus, L.) will feed
for months upon a chair that has been baking before the fire
for half a century, and from which even the chemist's retort
could scarcely extract a drop of moisture ; and will yet
have its body as well filled with fluids as that of a leaf-fed
caterpillar.

By far the greater part of insects always feed them-
selves. The young however of those which live in socie-
ties, as the hive- and humble-bees, wasps, ants, &c. are
fed by the older inhabitants of the community, which also
fi-equently feed each other. Many of these last insects are
distinguished from the majority of their race, which live
from day to day and take no thought for the morrow, by
the circumstance of storing up food. Of those which feed
themselves, the larger proportion have imposed upon them
the task of providing for their own wants ; but the tribe
of Spheges, wild bees, and some others, are furnished
in the larva state by the parent insect with a supply of
food sufficient for their consumption until they have at-
tained maturity.

As to their time of feeding, insects may b'^ divided into
three great classes : the day-feeders, the niguc-feeders, and
those which feed hidifferently at all times. You have been
apt to think, I dare say, that when the sun's warmer beams
have waked the insect youth, and

" Ten thousand f'ornis, ten thousand different tribes,
People the blaze,"

you see before you the whole insect world. You arc not

392 FOOD OF INSECTS.

aware that a host as numerous shun the glare of day, and,
Hke the votaries of fashion, rise not from their couch until
their more vulgar brethren have retired to rest. While
the painted butterfly, the "fervent bees," and the quiver-
ing nations of flies, which sport

"Thick in yon stream of light, a thousand ways,
Upward and downward thwarting and convolved,"
love to bask in the sun's brightest rays, and search for
their food amidst his noontide fervor, an immense multi-
tude stir not before the sober time of twilight, and eat
only when night has overshadowed the earth. Then only,
the vast tribe of moths quit their hiding-places ; "the shard-
born^ beetle with his drowsy hum," accompanied by nu-
merous others of his order, sallies forth ; the airy Tipulae
institute their dances ; and the solitary spider stretches his
net. All these retire into concealment at the approach
of light. — Some few larva? {Noctna cxdamaiioiiis, &c.) have
similar habits, and those of one singular genus before ad-

' In the controversy between the commentators on Shakespeare, as
to whether shard* means wing-cases, dung, or a fragment of earthen-
ware, and whether Ao;m should be spelled with or without the ^, it
might have thrown some weight into the scale of those who contend
for the ortliography adopted above, and that the meaning of shard in
this place is thing, if they had been aware that ihc bect\e (Scarabcrus
stcrcorarius) is actually born amongst dung, and no where elsej and
that no beetle which makes a hum in flying can with propriety be said,
as Dr. Johnson has interpreted the epithet in his Dictionary, " to be
born amongst broken stones or pots." That Shakespeare alluded to
the Beetle, and not to the Cockchafer (il/c/()/o;////« imlgaris), seems
clear from the fact of the former being to be heard in all places almost
every fine evening in the summer, while the latter is common only in
particular districts, and at one period of the 3'ear. S.

* Sham is the conimon name of cow-dung in the North : therefore
Shakespeare prol)abl\ wrote nJiarn-horu. Afr. MacLeai/.

rOOD OF INSECTS. 393

verted to (Nyderohius) are remarkable for providing in
the night a store of food which they consume in the day ;
but to the generahty of these the period of feeding is in-
different, and most of them seem to eat with httle inter-
mission night and day.

Insects like other animals take in their food by the
mouth (in Chermes and Coccus^ indeed, the rostrum seems
to be inserted in the breast, between the fore-legs), but
there is one exception to this rule. The singular Acarus
vegetcms, which is such a plague to some beetles, derives
its nutriment from them by means of a filiform pedicle or
umbilical cord attached to its anus ; and what increases
the singularity, sometimes several of these Acari form a
kind of chain, of which the first only is fixed by its pedicle
to the beetle, each of the remainder being similarly con-
nected with the one that precedes it ; so that the nutri-
ment drawn from the beetle passes to the last through the
bodies and umbilical cords of the individuals which are
intermediate ^. Some have regarded these bodies as true
eggs ; and their analogy with the pedunculated eggs of
Trombidium aquatiaim, F., which also seem to derive nou-
rishment from the Notonectae, &c. to which they are fixed,
and still more the circumstance of their ultimately losing
their pedicle and detaching themselves from the infested
beetles, give plausibility to the idea. Yet these Acari
are certainly furnished with feet, and have according to
De Geer"^ a part resembling a mouth — characters which
cannot be attributed to any egg.

In the variety of their instruments of nutrition, which

" De Gecr,vii. 13,'?. ^ Id. ibid. UQ.

394 FOOD OF INSECTS.

you must bear in mind are often quite different in the
larva and perfect states, insects leave all other animals far
behind. In common with them, a vast number (the orders
Coleoptera^ Hymenoptera, and Orthoptera^ and the larvae
oi Lepidoptera^ some Diptera, &c.) are furnished with
jaws, but of very different constructions, and all admi-
rably adapted for their intended services : some sharp,
and armed with spines and branches for tearing flesh ;
others hooked for seizing, and at the same time hollow for
suction ; some calculated like shears for gnawing leaves ;
others more resembling grindstones, of a strength and
solidity sufficient to reduce the hardest wood to powder :
and this singularity attends the major part of these insects,
that they possess in fact two pairs of jaws, an upper and
an under pair, both placed horizontally, not vertical!}', the
former apparently in most cases for the seizure and mas-
tication of their prey ; the latter, when hooked, for retain-
ing and tearing, while the upper comminute it previously
to its being swallowed ^.

To the remainder of the class of insects, a mighty host,
jaws would have been useless. Their refined liquid food
requires instruments of a different construction, and with
these they are profusely furnished. The inniunerable
tribes of moths and butterflies eat nothing but the honey
secreted in the nectaries of flowers, which are frequently
situated at the bottom of a tube of great length. 1 hey
are accordingly provided with an organ exquisitely fitted
for its office — a slender tubular tongue, more or less long,
sometimes not shorter then three hiclies, but spirally con-

» Plate VI. Fig. 4, 5. 10. 11. 24-26.

FOOD OF INSECTS. 395

voluted when at rest, like the main spring of a watch,
into a convenient compass. This tongue, which they
have- the power of instantly unrolling, they dart into the
bottom of a flower, and, as through a syphon, draw up a
supply of the delicious nectar on which they feed. A
letter would scarcely suffice for describing fully the ad-
mirable structure of this organ. I must content myself
therefore with here briefly observing that it is of a carti-
laginous substance, and apparently composed of a series
of innumerable rings, which, to be capable of such rapid
convolution, must be moved by an equal number of di-
stinct muscles ; and that, though seemingly simple, it is
in fact composed of three distinct tubes, the two lateral
ones cylindrical and entire, intended, as Reaumur thinks,
for the reception of air; and the intermediate one, through
which alone the honey is conveyed, nearly square, and
formed of two separate grooves projecting from the lateral
tubes ; which grooves, by means of a most curious appa-
ratus of hooks like those in the laminae of a feather, in-
osculate into each other, and can be either imited into
an air-tight canal, or be instantly separated, at the plea-
sure of the insect^.

Another numerous race, the whole of the order He-
miptera, abstract the juices of plants or of animals by
means of an instrument of a construction altogether dif-
ferent— a hollow grooved beak, often jointed, and con-
taining three bristle-formed lancets, which, at the same
time that they pierce the food, apply to each other so
accurately as to form one air-tight tube, througli v/hich

* For a full description of this instrument see Reaum. i. 125, &c,
" Plate VI. Fig. 29, 30.

396 FOOD OF INSECTS.

the little animals suck up * their repast ; thus, forming a
pump, which, more effective than ours, digs the well
from which it draws the fluid''.

A third description of insects, those of the order Di-
ptera, comprising the whole tribe of flies, have a sucker
formed on the same general plan as that last described,
but of a much more complicated and varied structure.
It is in like manner composed of a grooved case and
several included lancets ; but the case, although horny,
rigid and beak-like in some, is in others fleshy, flexible,
and more resembling the proboscis of an elephant, and
temiinates in two turgid liplets : and the accompanying
lancets are themselves included in an upper hollow case,
in connexion with which they probably compose an air-
tight tube for suction. The number and form of these
instruments is extremely various. In some genera [Mus-
ca) there is but one, which resembles a sharp lancet.
Others [Empis, Asilus,) have three, the two lateral ones
needle-shaped, that in the middle like a scymetar ; to-
gether forming so keen an apparatus, that De Geer has
seen an Asilus pierce with it the elytra of a Coccinella ;
and I have myself caught them with not only an Elater
and Curculio, but even a Mister^ in their mouths. In
many Tabani we find four ; two precisely resembling

* The mode, however, in which this is effected in all insects fur-
nished with a proboscis, can scarcely be by suction, strictly so called,
or the abstraction of" air, since the air-vessels of insects do not com- -
municate with their mouths : it is more probably performed in part
by capillary attraction ; and, as Lamarck has suggested, {Si/st. des
Anhn. sans Vertebrcs, p. 193.) in part by a succession of undulations
and contractions of the sides of the organ.

'■ Pi.ATF VI. Fig. 1G— 19.

FOOD OF INSECTS. 397

lancets, and two, even to the very handles, buck-hafted
carvhig-knives*. The blood-thirsty gnat has five, some
acutely lanced at the extremity, and others serrated on
one side. The flea, the spider, the scorpion have all in-
struments for takino- their food of a construction altoge-
ther different''. But it is impossible here to attempt
even a sketch of the variations in these organs which
take place in the apterous genera, and in many of the
dipterous larvae. Suffice it to say that they all manifest
the most consummate skill in their adaptation to the
purposes of the insects which are provided with them,
and which can often employ them not only as instru-
ments for preparing food, but as wea})ons of offence and
defence, as tools in the building of their nests, and even
as feet.

Some insects in their perfect state, though furnished
with organs of feeding, make no use of them, and con-
sume no food whatever. Of this description are the
moth which proceeds from the silk-worm, and several
others of the same order; the different species of QEstrus,
and the Ephemerae, insects whose history is so well known
as to afford a moral or a simile to those most ignorant of
natural history. All these live so short a time in the
perfect state as to need no food. Indeed it may be laid
down as a general rule, that almost all insects in this
state eat much less than in that of larvae. The vora-
cious caterpillar when transformed into a butterfly needs
only a small quantity of honey; and the gluttonous mag-
got, when become a fly, contents itself with a drop or
two of any sweet liquid.

^ Pf.ATE VII. Fig. 5. ^ Plate VII. Fig. 8. 10.

3&8 FOOD OF INSECTS.

While in the state of larvae the quantity of food con-
sumed by insects is vastly greater in proportion to their
bulk than that requii-ed by larger animals. Many cater-
pillars eat daily twice their weight of leaves, which is as if
an ox, weighing sixty stone, were to devour every twenty-
four hours three quarters of a ton of grass — a power of
stomach which our graziers may thank their stars that
dieir oxen are not endowed with. A probable proxi-
mate cause for this voracity in the case of herbivorous
larvae has been assigned by John Hunter, who attributes
it to the circumstance of their stomach not having the
power of dissolving the vegetable matters received into
it, but merely of extracting from them a juice *. This is
proved both by their excrement, which consists of coiled-
up and hardened particles of leaf, that being put into
water expand like tea ; and by the great proportion
which the excrement bears to the quantity of food con-
sumed. From experiments, with a detail of which he
has favoured me, made by Colonel Machell on the ca-
terpillars of Bomhyx Caja, he ascertained tliat, though
a larva weighing thirty-six grains voided every twelve
hours from fifteen to eighteen grains weight of excre-
ment, it did not increase in weight in the same period
more than one or two grains. On the other hand, many
carnivorous larvae increase in weight in full proportion
to the food consumed, and that in an astonishing degree.
Redi found that the maggots of flesh-flies, of which one
day, twenty-five or thirty did not weigh above a grain,
the next weighed seven grains each; having thus in

* Obs. 071 the Animal CEcoiwniy, p. 221. Compare Reaum. ii. 167.

FOOD OF INSECTS. 309

twenty-four hours become about two hundred times
heavier than before^.

Some insects have the faculty of sustaining a long abs-
tinence from all kinds of food. This seems to depend
upon the nature of their habits. If the insect feeds on
a substance of a deficiency of which there is not much
probability, as on vegetables, &c. it commonly requires
a frequent supply. If, on the contrary, it is an insect of
prey, and exposed to the danger of being long deprived
of its food, it is often endowed with a power of fasting,
which would be incredible but for the numerous facts by
which it is authenticated. The ant-lion will exist with-
out the smallest supply of food, apparently uninjured, for
six months ; though, when it can get it, it will devour
daily an insect of its own size. Vaillant, whose autho-
rity may be here taken, assures us that he kept a spider
without food under a sealed glass for ten months, at the
end of which time, thouL'"h shrunk in size, it was as vi-
gorous as ever^. And Mr. Baker, so well known for
his microscopical discoveries, states that he kept a beetle
(Blaps mortisaga) alive for three years without food of
any kind'^. Some insects, not of a predaceous de-
scription, are gifted with a similar power of abstinence.
Leeuwenhoek tells us that a mite, which he had gum-
med alive to the point of a needle and placed before his
microscope, lived in that situation eleven weeks ^.

In some cases the very want of food, however para-

* Redi de Insectis, 39. '' New Travels, i, xxxix.

* Phil. Trans. 1740, p. 441. I confess, notwithstanding Mr. Ba-
ker's general accuracy, that I suspect some mistake here.

•^ Leeuw. Op. ii. 363,

400 FOOD OF INSECTS,

doxical the proposition, seems actually to be a mean of
prolonging the life of insects. At least one such instance
has fallen under my own observation. The aphid ivorous
flies, such as Syrphus Pyrastri^ &c. live in the larva state
ten or twelve days, in the pupa state about a fortnight,
and as perfect insects sometimes possibly as long — the
whole term of their existence in summer not exceeding
at the very utmost six weeks. But one^, which I put
under a glass on the 2d of June, 1811, when about half
grown, and, after supplying it with Aphides once or tw ice,
by accident forgot, I found to my great astonishment
alive three months after ; and it actually lived until the
June following without a particle of food. It had there-
fore existed in the larva state more than eight times as
long as it would have lived in all its states, if it had re-
gularly undergone its metamorphoses — which is as ex-
traordinary a prolongation of life as if a man were to live
560 years. It is true that its existence was not worth
having even to the larva of a fly. For the last eight
months it remained without motion, attached by its pos-
terior pair of tubercles to the paper on which it was placed,
manifesting no other symptoms of life than by moving the

* 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. /. 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.

FOOD OF IXSf.CXSl. 401

fore part of the hotly when touched, and replachig itself
on its belly if turned upon its back. But this was quite
enough to prove it still alive. — I can attribute this singu-
lar result to no other circumstance than its having been
deprived of a sufficient quantity of food to bring it into
the pupa state, though provided with enough for the at-
tainment of nearly its full growth as larva. Possibly tlie
same remote cause might act in this case, as operates to
prolong the term of existence of annual plants that have
been prevented from perfecting then* seed ; and it would
almost seem to favoin* the hypothesis of some physiolo-
gists, who contend that every organised being has a cer-
tain portion of irritability originally imparted to it, and
that its life will be long or short as this is slowly or ra-
pidly excited — no great consolation this for the advocates
for fast-living, unless they are in good earnest in their
affected preference of a " short life and a merry one :"
though it must be admitted that they would have the best
of the argument were the alternative such a state of torpid
insensibility as that with which our larva purchased the
prolongation of its existence.

After this general view of the food of insects, and of
circumstances connected with it, I proceed to give you
an account of some peculiarities in their modes of pro-
curinfj it.

The vegetable feeders have for the most part but little
difficulty in supplying their wants. In the larva state
they generally find themselves placed by the parent in-
sect upon the very plant or substance which is to nourish
them ; and in their perfect state their wings or feet afford

VOL, J. Ha

402 FOOD OF INSECTS.

a ready conveyance to the banquet to which by an un-
erring sense they are directed. All nature lies before
them, and it is only when their numbers are extraordi-
narily increased, or in consequence of some unusual de-
struction of their appropriate aliment, that they perish for
want. The description of their food renders unnecessary
those artifices to which many of the carnivorous insects
are obliged to have recourse ; and none of them, if we
except the Termites, whose cunning mode of insinuating
themselves into houses in tropical climates has been de-
tailed in a former letter, can be said to use stratagem in
obtaining their food-

Of the carnivorous species, the greater proportion at-
tack their prey by open violence, such as the Cicindel(Sf
Carabid(E and Staphylinidce ,- the Ichneumonidde, Spheges
and Vespa ,- the Maiites, Cimicida, Libeliulida;, &c. ;
which have been before adverted to. But a very con-
siderable number, chiefly, however, of one tribe, that of
spiders, provide their sustenance solely by artifice and
stratagem, the singularity of which, and the admirable
adaptation of the instruments by which they take their
prey to the end in view, afford a most wonderful instance
of the power and wisdom of the Creator, and have at-
tracted admiration in all ages. A description of these,
however, which will require a detailed survey, I must
refer to another letter.

I am, &c.

LETTER XIII.

FOOD OF INSECTS CONTINUED.

STRATAGEMS EMPLOYED IN PROCURING IT.

J. HE Stratagems of insects in obtaining their food are
now to engage our attention. I shall not dwell on those
inartificial modes of surprising their prey, of which ex-
amples may be found amongst almost every order of
insects, such as watching behind a leaf or other object
affording concealment until its approach ; but shall pro-
ceed to describe the various artifices of the race of spi-
ders, of which there are several hundred distinct species
differing essentially from each other both in characters
and manners.

Many of these are constantly under our eyes; and
were it not that we are accustomed to neglect what is
the subject of daily occurrence, we should never behold
a spider's web without astonishment. What, if we had
not witnessed it, would seem more incredible than that
any animal should spin threads ; weave these threads
into nets more admirable than ever fowler or fisherman
fabricated ; suspend them with the nicest judgement in
the place most abounding in the wished-for prey ; and
there concealed watch patiently its approach ? In this

2 D 2

404' FOOD OF INSECTS.

case, as in so many others, we neglect actions in minute
animals, which in the larger would excite our endless
admiration. How would the world crowd to see a fox
which should spin ropes, weave them into an accurately-
meshed net, and extend this net between two trees for the
purpose of entangling a flight of birds ? Or should we
think we had ever expressed sufficient wonder at seeing
a fish which obtained its prey by a similar contrivance?
Yet there would, in reality, be nothing more marvellous
in their procedures than in those of spiders, which, indeed,
the minuteness of the agent renders more wonderful.

All spiders do not spin webs. A considerable num-
ber adopt other means for catching insects. Of these I
shall speak hereafter. At present I shall endeavour to
give you a clear idea of the operations of the weavers,
explaining successively the instruments by which they
spin — the mode of forming their nets, together with tlie
various descriptions of them — and the manner in which
they entrap and secure their prey.

The thread spun by spiders is in substance similar to
the silk of the silk- worm and other caterpillars, but of a
much finer quality. As in them, it proceeds from reser-
voirs, into which it is secreted in the form of a viscid
gum ; but in the mode of its extrication is very dissi-
milar, issuing not from tlie mouth but the hinder part of
the abdomen. If you examine a spider, you will per-
ceive in this part four or six little teat-like protuberances
or spinners. These are the machinery through which,
by a process more singtilar than that of rope-spinning,
the thread is drawn. Each spinner is furnished with a
multitude of tubes, so numerous and so exquisitely fine,

vot)i) or IN SECTS. 405

that a space often not much bigger than the pointed end
of a pm, is furnished, according to Reaumur =*, with a
thousand of them. From eacli of these tubes, consisting
of two pieces, the last of which terminates in a point in-
finitely fine, proceeds a thread of inconceivable tenuity,
which, immediately after issuing from it, unites with all
the other threads into one. Hence from each spinner
proceeds a compound thread; and these four threads, at
the distance of about one-tenth of an inch from the npex
of the spinners, again unite, and form the thread we are
accustomed to see, which the spider uses in forming its
web. The threads, however, are not all of the same
thickness, for Leeuwenhoek observed that some of the
tubes were larger than others, and furnished a larger
thread. Thus a spider's thread, even spun by the small"
est species, and when so fine that it is almost impercep-
tible to our senses, is not, as we suppose, a single line,
but a rope composed of at least four thousand strands.
How astonishing ! But to feel all the wonder of this
fact we must follow Leeuwenhoek in one of his calcula^
tions on the subject. This renowned microscopic ob-r
server found by an accurate estimation that the threads
of the minutest spiders, some of %vhich are not larger

^ Re-Aum Mem. deVAcad. dcPari,s;An. 1/13. 211.— Dc Gcei*,vii. 187,
See also Hoole's Lceinvenhocic, i. 41. — t. 2. f. 20-2!?. Leeuwenhoek
examined a spinner that was not so big as a common grain of sancf,
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 tiiousanj
threads from the whole— hut he docs not enter further into the sulu
ject. Xoifc. Did. d'Hi-st. Xal. ii. 2/8.

406 FOOD OF INSECTS.

than a grain of sand, are so fine that four millions of
them would not equal in thickness one of the hairs of
his beard. Of such tenuity it is utterly beyond the
power of the imagination to conceive : the very idea over-
whelms our faculties, and humbles us under a sense of
their imperfection. — Of the probable accuracy of this
calculation you may any day in summer convince your-
self, by taking one of the large field spiders [Aranea
Diadema, L.), and after pressing its abdomen against a
leaf or other substance, so as to attach the threads to the
surface — the same preliminary step which the spider
adopts in spinning — drawing it gradually to a small di-
stance. You will plainly perceive that the proper thread
of the spider is formed of lour smaller threads, and these
again of threads so fine and numerous, that there cannot
be fewer than a thousand issue from each spinner ; and
if you pursue your researches with the microscope, you
will find that precisely the same takes place in the mi-
nutest species that spins. — You will inquire what can be
the end of machinery so complex? One probable rea-
son is, that it was necessary for drying the gum suffi-
ciently to form a tenacious line, that an extensive surface
should be exposed to the air ; which is admirably effected
by dividing it at its exit from the abdomen into such nu-
merous threads. But the chief cause, perhaps, is the
occasion (hereafter to be adverted to) which the spider
sometimes has to employ its threads in their finer and
unconnected state before tliey unite to form a single one^
— The spider is gifted by her Creator with the power of
closing the orifices of the spinners at pleasure, and can
thus, in dropping from a height by her line, stop her

FOOD OF INSECTS. 407

progress at any point of her descent : and, according to
Lister ''j she is also able to retract her threads within the
abdomen ; but this is doubted, and with apparent reason,
by De Geer''.

The only other instruments employed by the spider
in weaving are her feet, with the claws of which she
usually guides, or keeps separated into two or more, the
line from behind ; and in many species these are admi-
rably adapted for the purpose, two of them being fur-
nished underneath with teeth like those of a comb, by
means of which the threads are kept asunder. But an-
other instrument was wanting. The spider in ascending
the line by which she has dropped herself from an emi-
nence, winds up the superfluous cord into a ball. In
performing this the pectinated claws would not have been
suitable. She is therefore furnished with a third claw
between the other two*^, and is thus provided for every
occasion.

The situations in which spiders place their nets are
as various as their construction. Some prefer the open
air, and suspend them in the midst of shrubs or plants
most frequented by flies and other small insects, fixing
them in a horizontal, a vertical, or an oblique direction.
Others select the corners of windows and of rooms,
where prey always abounds ; while many establish them-
selves in stables and neglected out-houses, and even in
cellars and desolate places in which one would scarcely
expect a fly to be caught in a month. It is with the
operations of these last especially, that we are accus-

" Hist. Anim. Am^. p. 8. *• De Gecr, vii, IS!).

•^ Leeuvv. Opusc. iii. 317. f. 1-

408 FOOD or INSECTS.

tomed to associate the ideas of neglect and desertion by
man — associations which both in painting and allegory
have been often happily applied. Hogarth, when he
wished to produce a speaking picture of neglected cha-
rity, clothed the poor's box in one of his pieces with a
spider's web : and the Jews, in one of the fables with
which they have disfigured the records of holy writ, have
not less ingeniously availed themselves of the same idea.
They relate that the reason why Saul did not discover
David and his men in the cave of Adullam=» was, that
God had sent a spider which had quickly woven a web
across the entrance of the cave in which they were con-
cealed; which being observed by Saul, he thought it
useless to investigate further a spot bearing such evident
proofs of the absence of any human being^.

The most incurious observer must have remarked the
great difference which exists in the construction of spi-
ders' webs. Those which we most commonly see in
houses are of a woven texture similar to fine gauze, and
are appropriately termed webs; while those most fre-
quently met with in the fields are composed of a series of
concentric circles united by radii diverging from the
centre, the threads being remote from each other. These
last, which in their simple state, or still more when
studded with dew drops, you must have a thousanc^
times admired, are with greater propriety termed netsi
and the insects which form them proceeding on geome-
trical principles may be called geomeiriciajis, while the
former can aspire only to the humbler denomination of

' 1 Sam. xxiv. !. *> Lester, L. ii. ^Dl.

FOOD Ol' INSECTS. 4 09

weavers. I shall endeavour to describe the process iol-
lowed in the construction of both, beghining with the
latter.

The weaving spider which is found in houses, having
selected some corner lor the site of her web, and deter-
mined its extent, presses her spinners against one of
the walls, and thus glues to it one end of her thread.
She then walks along the wall to the opposite side, and
there in like manner fastens the other end. Tills thread,
which is to form the outer margin or selvage of lier web,
and requires strength, she triples or quadruples by a re-
petition of the operation just described ; and from it she
draws other threads in various directions, the interstices
of which she fills up by running from one to the other,
and connecting them by new threads until the whole has
assumed the gauze-like texture wliicli we see. Books of
natural history, all copying from one another, have de-
scribed these kinds of web as fabricated of a refmlar
warp and woof, or of parallel longitudinal lines crossed
at right angles by transverse ones glued to them at the
points of intersection. This, however. Is clearly erro-
neous, as you will see by the slightest examination of a
web of this kind, in wliich no such regularity of texture
can be discovered.

The webs just described present merely a simple hoi'l-
zontal surface, but others more frequently seen in out-
houses and amongst bushes possess a very artificial ap-
pendage. Besides the main web, the spider carries up
from its edges and surface a number of single tincads
often to the heisjlit o{" mauv feet, ioinino- tuid cro^siiio"
rach otli.cr in variou.s ':lircctions, Acros.'s. these lines.

410 FOOD OF INSECTS.

which may be compared to the tackling of a ship, flies
seem unable to avoid directing their flight. The certain
consequence is, that in striking against these ropes they
become sHghtly entangled, and, in their endeavours to
disengage themselves, rarely escape being precipitated
into the net spread underneath for their reception, where
their doom is inevitable.

But the net is still incomplete. It is necessary that
our hunter should conceal her grim visage from the
game for which she lies in wait. She does not there-
fore station herself upon the surface of her net, but in a
small silken apartment constructed below it, and com-
pletely hidden from view. " In this corner," to use the
quaint translation of Pliny by Philemon Holland, Doctor
in Physic^, "with what subtiltie doth she retire making
semblance as though she meant nothing less than that
she doth, and as if she went about some other business !
nay, how close lieth she, that it is impossible to see
whether any one be within or no !" But thus removed
to a distance from her net and entirely out of sight of it,
how is she to know wlien her prey is entrapped ? For
this difficulty our ingenious weaver has provided. She
has taken care to spin several threads from the edge of
the net to that of her hole, which at once inform her by
their vibrations of the capture of a fly, and serve as' a
bridffe on which in an instant she can run to secure it.

You will readily conceive that the geometrical spiders,
in forming their concentric circled nets, follow a {)rocess
very different from that just described, than wjiich in-
deed it is in many respects more curious. As the net is
' L. xi. c. 2i.

FOOD or INSECTS. 411

usually fixed in a perpendicular or somewhat oblique di-
rection, in an opening between the leaves of some shrub
or plant, it is obvious that round its whole extent will
be required lines to which can be attached those ends of
the radii that are furthest from the centre. Accordingly
the construction of these exterior lines is the spider's first
operation. She seems careless about the shape of the
area which they inclose, well aware that she can as
readily inscribe a circle in a triangle as in a square, and
in this respect she is guided by the distance or proximity
of the points to which she can attach them. She spares
no pains, however, to strengthen and keep them in a
proper degree of tension. With tlie former view she
composes each line of five or six or even more threads
glued together; and with the latter slie fixes to them
from different points a numerous and intricate apparatus
of smaller threads. Having thus completed the founda-
tions of her snare ^, she proceeds to fill up the outline.
Attaching a thread to one of the main lines, she walks
along it, guiding it with one of her hind feet that it may
not touch in any part and be prematurely glued, and
crosses over to the opposite side, where by applying her
spinners she firmly fixes it. To the middle of this dia-
gonal thread, which is to form the centre of her net,
she fixes a second, which in like manner she conveys
and fastens to another part of the lines encircling the
area. Her work now proceeds rapidly. During the
preliminary operations she sometimes rests, as though

* I am not certain whether the garden spider docs not more fre-
quently form one or two of the principal radii of the net, before
she spins the exterior lines.

412 rOOD OF INSLC'J'S.

her plan required meditation. But no sooner are the
marginal lines of her net firmly stretched, and two or
three radii spun from its centre, than she continues her
labour so quickly and unremittingly that the eye can
scarcely follow her progress. The radii to the number
of about twenty, giving the net the appearance of a
wheel, are speedily finished. She then proceeds to the
centre, quickly turns herself round, and pulls each
thread with her feet to ascertain its strength, breaking
anyone that seems defective and replacing it by another.
Next, she glues immediately round the centre five or six
small concentric circles, distant about half a line from
each other, and then four or five larger ones, each sepa-
rated by a space of half an inch or more. These last
serve as a sort of temporary scaffolding to walk over,
and to keep the radii properly stretched while she glues
to them the concentric circles that are to remain, which
she now proceeds to construct. Placing herself at the
circumference, and fastening her thread to the end of
one of the radii, she walks up that one, towards the
centre, to such a distance as to draw tlie thread from
her body of a sufficient length to reach to the next. Then
stepping across and conducting the thread with one of
her hind feet, she glues it with her spinners to the point
in the adjoining radius to which it is to be fixed. This
process she repeats until she has filled up nearly the
whole space from the circumference to the centre with
concentric circles distant from each other about two
lines. She always, however, leaves a vacant interval
around the smallest first spun circles that are nearest to
the centre, but for what end I am unable to conjecture.

FOOD or INSECTS. 413

Lastly, she runs to the centre and bites away the small
cotton-hke tuft that united all the radii, which being now
held together by the circular threads have thus probably
their elasticity increased ; and in the circular opening
resulting from this procedure she takes her station and
watches for her prey.

In the above description, Avhich is from my own ob-
servations, I have supposed the spider to fix the first
and main line of her net to points from one of which she
could readily climb to the other, dragging it afler her ;
and many of these nets are placed in situations where
this is very practicable. They are frequently, however,
stretched in places where it is quite impossible for the
spider thus to convey her main line — between the branches
of lofty trees having no connexion w ith each other ; be-
tween two distinct and elevated buildings ; and even be-
tween plants growing in water. Here then a difficulty
occurs. How does the spider contrive to extend her
main Ihie, which is often many feet in length, across in-
accessible openings of this description ?

With the view of deciding this question, to which I
could find no very satisfactory answer in books, I made
an experiment, for the idea of which I am indebted to a
similar one recorded by Mr. Knight*, who informs us
that if a spider be placed upon an upright stick having
its bottom immersed in water, it will, after trying in vain
all other modes of escape, dart out numerous fine threads
so light as to float in the air, some one of which attach-
ing itself to a neighbouring object furnishes a bridge for
its escape. It was clear that if this mode is pursued by
* Trcatke cm the Apple and Pear, p. 97.

414' rOOD OF INSFX'TS.

the geometric spiders, it would go considerably towards
furnishing a solution of the difficulty in question. I ac-
cordingly placed the large field spider (A. Diadema)
upon a stick about a foot long, set upright in a vessel
containing water. After fastening its thread (as all spi-
ders do before they move) at the top of the stick, it
crept down the side until it felt the water with its fore
feet, which seem to serve as antennae : it then immedi-
ately swung itself from the stick (which was slightly bent)
and climbed up by the thread to the top. This it re-
peated perhaps a score times, sometimes creeping down
a different part of the stick, but more frequently down
the very side it had so often traversed in vain. Wearied
with this sameness in its operations, I left the room for
some hours. On my return I was surprised to find my
prisoner escaped, and not a little pleased to discover, on
further examination, a thread extended from the top
of the stick to a cabinet seven or eight inches distant,
which thread had doubtless served as its bridge. Eager
to witness the process by which the line was constructed,
I replaced the spider in its former position. After fre-
quently creeping down and mounting up again as before,
at length it let itself drop from the top of the stick, not
as before by a single thread, but by /wo, each distant from
the other about the twelfth of an inch, guided as usual
by one of its hind feet, and one apparently smaller than
the other. When it had suffered itself to descend nearly
to the surface of the water, it stopped short, and, by some
means which I could not distinctly see, broke off close
to the spinners the smallest thread, which^till adhering
by the other end to the top of the stick floated in the

FOOD OF INSECTS. ilS

air, and was so light as to be carried about by the slight-
est breath. On approaching a pencil to the loose end
of this line, it did not adhere from mere contact. I
therefore twisted it once or twice round the pencil, and
then drew it tight. The spider, which had previously
climbed to the top of the stick, immediately pulled at it
with one of its feet, and, finding it sufficiently tense, crept
along it, strengthening it as it proceeded by another
thread, and thus reached the pencil*.

That this therefore is one mode by which the geome-
tric spiders convey the main line of their nets between
distant objects, there can be no doubt, but that it is the
only one is not so clear. If the position of the main line
be thus determined by the accidental influence of the
wind, we might expect to see these nets arranged with
great irregularity, and crossing each other in every di-
rection ; yet it is the fact, that however closely crowded
they may be, they constantly appear to be placed not
by accident but design, commonly running parallel with
each other at right angles with the points of support, and

* Some time after making this experiment I stumbled upon a pass-
age in Redi {De Insectis, p. 119.) from which it appears that Blan-
canus, in his Commentaries upon Aristotle, has related a series of ob-
servations which led him to precisely the same result. Lehmann,
too, in a paper in the Transactions of the Society of Xatiu-alists at
Berlin (translated in the Philosophical Magazine, xi. 323.) has given
an explanation somewhat similar of the operations of this very spider,
but I am inclined to think erroneous in some particulars. He de-
Kcribes it as emitting numerous floating threads at the commencement
of its descent. That he is mistaken in supposing these threads to be
more than one, is proved by the fact which I have observed — that
even that one sometimes breaks by the weight of the spider. How
then could an insect almost as big as a gooseberry be supported by a
line oi the tenuity here attributed to it ?

416 FOOD OF IXSF.C'TS.

never interfering. Another objection too presents itself.
From the experiment related, it is clear that the main
line of the net can never be lontrer than the height of
the object from which the spider dropped in forming it.
But it is no uncommon thing to see nets in which these
lines are a yard or two long, fastened to twigs of grass
not a foot in height, and yet separated by obstacles ef-
fectually precluding the possibility of the spiders having
dragged the lines from one to the other. Here there-
fore some other process must have been used.

Both these difficulties would be removed by adopting
the explanation of an anonymous author in the Journal
de Physique^ i founded as he asserts on actual observa-
tion. He says that he saw a small spider, which he had
forced to suspend itself by its thread from the point of a
feather, shoot out obliquely in opposite directions other
smaller threads, which attached themselves in the still air
of a room, without any influence of the wind, to the ob-
jects towards which they were directed. He there-
fore infers that spiders have the power of i^hooting out
threads and directing them at pleasure towards a de-
termined point, judging of the distance and position of
the object by some sense of which we are ignorant.
Something like this manoeuvre I once myself witnessed
in a male of the small garden spider [Arariea retiadata).
It was standing midway on a long perpendicular fixed
thread, and an appearance caught my eye of what seemed
to be the emission of threads from its projected spinners.
I therefore moved my arm in the direction in which they
apparently proceeded, and, as I suspected, a floating
* An. vli. Vindewimre, Translated in PhU. Mng. ii. 275.

POOD OF INSECTS. 417

thread attached itself to my coat, along which the spider
crept. As this was connected with the spinners of the
spider, it could not have been formed in the same way
with the secondary thread of A, Dladema above de-
scribed.

Probably in this case, as in so many others, we be-
wilder ourselves by attempting to make nature bend to
generalities to which she disdains to submit. Different
spiders may lay the foundations of their net in a diffe-
rent manner ; some on the plan adopted by A. Diadema ;
others, as Lister long ago conjectured^, by shooting out
threads in the mode of the flying species, as in the in-
stances recorded by the anonymous observer, and Mr.
Knight. Nor is it improbable that the same species has
the power of varying its procedures according to cir-
cumstances.

How far these suppositions are correct it is impossible
to determine without further experiments, which it is
somewhat strange should not before now have been in-
stituted. Pliny thought it nothing to the credit of the
philosophers of his day, that while they were disputing
about the number of heroes of the name of Hercules,
and the site of the sepidchre of Bacchus, they should not
have decided whether the queen bee had a sting or not^ ;
but it seems much more discreditable to the Entomolo-
gists of ours, that they should yet be ignorant how the
geometric spiders fix their nets. One excuse for them
is, that these insects generally begin their operations in
the night, so that, though it is very easy to see them
spinning their concentric circles, it is seldom that they

■' Hid. Aii'/m. Ang. p. 7- *" PHn- Niit. Kat. 1. xi. c. 17-

VOL. I. 2 E

418 FOOD OF INSECTS.

can be caught laying the foundations of their snares. Yet
doubtless the lucky moment might be hit by an atten-
tive observer, and I shall be glad if my attempt to de-
scribe their more ordinary operations should induce you
to aim at signalizing yourself by the discovery. If you
failed in solving every difficulty, you would at least be
rewarded by witnessing their industry, ingenuity, and
patience.

For the latter virtue they liave no small occasion. In-
capable of actively pursuing their prey, they are depen-
dent upon what chance conducts into their toils, which,
especially those spread in neglected buildings, often re-
main for a long period empty. Even the geometrical
spiders, which fix themselves in the midst of a well-peo-
pled district in the open air, have frequently to sustain
a protracted abstinence. A continued storm of wind
and rain will demolish their nets, and preclude the pos-
sibility of reconstructing them for many days or some-
times weeks, during which not a single gnat regales their
sharp-set appetites. And when at length formed anew
or repaired, an unlucky bee or wasp, or an overgrown
fly, will perversely entangle itself in toils not intended
for insects of its bulk, and in disengaging itself once
more leave the net in ruin, — All these trials move not
our philosophic race. They patiently sit in their watch-
ing-place in the same posture, scarcely ever stirring but
when the expected prey appears. And however repeat-
edly their nets are injured or destroyed, as long as their
store of silk is unexhausted, they repair or reconstruct
them without loss of time.

The web of a house spider will, with occasional re-

FOOD OF INSECTS. 419

pairs, serve for a considerable period ; but the nets of
tlie geometric spiders are in favourable weather renewed
either wholly, or at least their concentric circles, every
twenty-four hours, even when not apparently injured.
This difference in the operations of the two tribes de-
pends upon a very remarkable peculiarity in the con-
formation of their snares. The threads of the house
spider's web are all of the same kind of silk, and flies
are caught in them from their claws becoming entangled
in the fine meshes which form the texture. On the other
hand the net of the garden spider is composed of two
distinct kinds of silk ; that of the radii not adhesive, that
of the circles extremely viscid^. The cause of this dif-
ference, which, when it is considered that both sorts of
silk proceed from the same instrument, is truly wonder-
ful, may be readily perceived. If you examine a newly
formed net with a microscope, you will find that the
threads composing the outline and the radii are simple,
those of the circles closely studded with minute dew-like
globules, which from the elasticity of the thread are easily
separable from each other. That these are in fact glo-
bules, of viscid gum, is proved by their adhering to the
finger and retaining dust throvm upon the net, while the
unadhesive radii and exterior threads remain unsoiled.
It is these gummed threads alone which retain the in-
sects that fly into the net ; and as they lose their viscid
properties by the action of the air, it is necessary that
they should be frequently renewed.

^ May not the spiruiers mentioned by Leeuwenhoek (see above
p. 407, note) be peculiar to the retiai y spiders, and furnish this vis-
cid thread ?

2 E 2

420 FOOD OF INSECTS.

In this renewal, as above hinted, the geometrical spi-
ders are constantly regulated by the future probable
state of the atmosphere, of which they have such a nice
perception, that M. Q. D'Isjonval, to whom we are in-
debted for the fact, has proposed them as most accurate
barometers. He asserts that if the weather be about to
be variable, wet and stormy, the main threads which sup-
port the net will be certainly short ; but if fine settled
weather be on the point of commencing, these threads
will be as invariably very long^. Without going the
length with M. D'Isjonval of deeming his discoveries im-
portant enough to regulate the march of armies, or the
sailing of fleets, or of proposing that the first appearance
of these barometrical spiders in spring should be announ-
ced by the sound of trumpet, I have reason to suppose
from my own observations that his statements are in the
main accurate, and that a very good idea of the weather
may be formed from attending to these insects.

The spiders which form geometrical nets differ from
the weavers also with respect to the situation in which
they watch for their prey. They do not conceal them-
selves under their net, but are placed in the centre with
their head downwards, and retire to a little apartment
formed on one side under some leaf of a plant, only when
obliged by danger or the state of the weather. The mo-
ment an unfortunate fly or other insect touches the net,
the spider rushes towards it, seizes it with her fangs, and
if it be a small species at once carries it to her little cell,
and, having there at leisure sucked its juices, throws out
the carcase. If the insect be larger and struggle to escape,
^ Brez, La Fhrc des Insectophiles, 1:29.

FOOD OF INSECTS. 421

with surprising address she envelops it with threads in
various directions, until both its wings and legs being ef-
fectually fastened, she carries it off' to her den. If the
captured insect be a bee or a large fly so strong tliat the
spider is sensible it is more than a match for her, she
never attempts to seize or even entangle it, but on the con-
trary assists it to disengage itself, and often breaks off
that part of the net to which it hangs, content to be rid
of such an unmanageable intruder at any price. — When
larger booty is plentiful, these spiders seem not to regard
smaller insects. I have observed them m autumn, when
their nets were almost covered with the Aphides which
filled the air, impatiently pulling them off* and dropping
them untouched over the sides, as though irritated that
their meshes should be occupied with such insignificant
game. — A species of spider described by Lister, {A. co-
nica,) more provident than its brethren, suspends its prey
in the meshes above and below the centre, and it is not
uncommon to see its larder thus stored with several flies *.
You must not infer that the toils of spiders are in every
part of the world formed of such fragile materials as those
which we are accustomed to see, or that they are eveiy
where contented with small insects for their food. An
author in the Philosophical Transactions asserts, that the
spiders of Bermudas spin webs between trees seven and
eight fathoms distant, which are strong enough to ensnare
a bird as large as a thrush''. And Sir G. Staunton in-
forms us, that in the forests of Java, spiders' webs are
met with of so strong a texture as to require a sharp-cut-
ting instrument to make way through them '^.

■'■ Lister, Hist. Aiiim. Aug. 32, tit. 4. ^ Phil. Ti\ 1668, p. 793.
<^ Einbassijto Chiiia/i. 313.

422 FOOD OF INSECTS.

Nor must you suppose that all the spiders of this coun-
try which catch their prey by means of snares, follow the
same plan in constructing them as the weavers and geo-
metricians whose operations I have endeavoured to de-
scribe. The form of their snares and the situation in
which they place them are so various, that it is impossible
to enumerate more than a few of the most remarkable.
Arafiea lahyrinthica^ L. extends over the blades of grass
a large white horizontal net having at its margin a cylin-
drical cell, in the bottom of which, secure from birds and
defended from the rays of the sun, the spider lies concealed,
whence on the slightest movement of her net she rushes
out upon her prey. A. latens^ F. conceals itself under a
small net spun upon the upper surface of a leaf, and thence
seizes upon any insect that chances to pass over it. A,
1 S-guttata, Rossi, forms under stones and in slight fur-
rows in the ground a net consisting of threads spun with-
out any regularity in all directions, but so strong as to
entrap grass-hoppers, which are said to be its principal
food ; and a similar inartificial snare of simple threads is
often spun in windows by A. bipiinctata, L. and several
other species. A. senoculata and its affinities conceal
themselves in a long cylindrical straight silken tube, from
the mouth of which they stretch out their six anterior feet,
whose extremities rest upon as many diverging threads :
thus, as soon as an insect walks across any of the threads
(which are eight or ten inches long) the insect's toes give
it warning of prey being at hand, when it rushes out and
seldom fails to secure its victim.

"The spider's touch how exquibitely fine !
Fccis at each thread, nnd lives alon" the line,"

FOOD OF INSECTS. 423

M. Homberg-tells us that he has seea a vigorous wasp
carried off and destroyed by one of these species.

The spiders, to which I have hitherto adverted, seize
their prey by means of webs or nets ; but a very large
number, though, like the former, they spin silken cocoons
for containing their eggs, never employ the same material
in constructing similar snares, of which they make no use.

These may be separated into two grand divisions ; the
first comprising those which conceal themselves and lie
in ambuscade for their prey, and sometimes run after it
to a short distance; the second, those which are con-
stantly roaming about in every direction in search of it,
and seize it by open violence. The former Walckenaer,
in his admirable work on spiders, has designated by the
name of Vagrants, the latter by that of Hunters ; term-
ing those already mentioned which spin webs and nets,
Sedentaries : if to these you add the Siinmmers, or those
species which catch their prej^ in the water, you will
have an idea of the general manners of the whole race
of spiders.

The artifices of that tribe which Walckenaer has na-
med vagrants are various and singular. A, Jiolosericea
and many other species conceal themselves in a little cell
formed of the rolled-up leaf of a plant, and thence dart
upon any insect which chances to pass ; while A. atrox
and its affinities select for their place of ambush a hole
in a wall, or lurk behind a stone, or in the bark of a tree.
A. cahjcina more ingeniously places herself at the bot-
tom of the calyx of a dead ilowcr, and pounces upon the
imwary flies that come in search of honey ; and A, anin-

424? FOOD OF INSECTS.

dinacea bui'ies herself in the thick panicle of a reed, and
seizes the luckless visitors enticed to rest upon her silvery
concealment. Many of this tribe at times quit their ha-
bitations, and by various stratagems contrive to come
within reach of their prey, as by pretending to be dead,
hiding themselves behind any slight projection, &c. A
white species I have often observed squatted in the blos-
som of the hawthorn or on the flowers of umbelliferous
plants, and is thus effectually concealed by the similarity
of colour.

Foremost amongst the spiders comprehended by
Walckenaer under the general name of hunters, which
search after and openly seize their prey, must be enume-
rated the monstrous A. avicularia, at least two inches
long, which takes up its abode in the woods of South
America, and has been reputed to seize and devour even
small birds ; but this is wholly denied by Langsdorf, who
declares that it eats only insects^. This species, as well
as another tropical one, A. venatoi'ia, the European A.
cementaria, and many others, construct in the ground
very singular cylindrical cavities, and therein carry and
devour their prey. These, being rather the habitations
of insects than snares, I shall describe in a subsequent
letter. A. saccata, the species whose affection for its
young I have before detailed, and not a few others of the
same family, common in this country, in like manner'
seize their prey openly, and when caught carry it to little
inartificial cavities under stones. A.^mbriata, L. hunts
along the margins of pools ; and Lycosa j^iratica of

" Bemcikuugcn anfcincr Rdse urn die Welt, i. 63.

FOOD OF INSECTS. 425

Walckenaer and its congeners not only chase their prey
in the same situation, but, venturing to skate upon the
surface of the water itself,

" . . . . bathe unwct their oily forms, and dwell
With feet repulsive on the dimpling well."

The Rev. R. Sheppard has often noticed in the fen
ditches of Norfolk a very large spider which actually
forms a raft for the purpose of obtaining its prey with
more facility. Keeping its station upon a ball of weeds
about three inches in diameter, probably held together
by slight silken cords, it is wafted along the surface of
the water upon this floating island, which it quits the
moment it sees a drowning insect — not, as you may con-
ceive, for the sake of applying to it the process of the
Humane Society, but of hastening its exit by a more
speedy engine of destruction. The booty thus seized it
devours at leisure upon its raft, under which it retires
when alarmed by any danger.

The last of the tribe of hunters that it is necessary to
particularize, are those which, like the tigers amongst
the larger animals, seize their victims by leaping upon
them. To this division belongs a very pretty small
banded species, A. sccnica, which in summer may be
seen running on every wall.

To Walckenaer's simmmers^ the last of his grand
tribes of spiders, including Ara7iea aquatica^ L. &c., the
first line of the above quotation from Dr. Darwin is par-
ticularly applicable ; for these actually seize their food by
diving under the water, their bodies being kept vmwet
by a coating of air which constantly surrounds them.
— Thus one single race of insects exemplify in miniature

426 FOOD OF INSECTS.

almost all the modes of obtaining food which prevail
amongst predaceous quadrupeds — the audacious attack
of the lion ; the wily spring of the tiger ; the sedentary
cunning of the lynx ; and the amphibious dexterity of
the otter.

This general view of the stratagems by which the
spider tribe obtain their food, imperfect as it is, will, I
trust, have interested you sufiiciently to drive away the
associations of disgust with which you, like almost every
one else, have probably been accustomed to regard these
insects. Instead of considering them as repulsive com-
pounds of cruelty and ferocity, you will henceforward
see in their procedures only the ingenious contrivance of
patient and industrious hunters, who, while obeying the
great law of nature in procuring their sustenance, are
actively serviceable to the human race in destroying
noxious msects. You will allow the poet to stigmatize

them as

" cunning and fierce,

Mixture abhorred !"

but you will see that these epithets are in reality as
unjustly applied to them (at least with reference to the
mode in which they procure their necessary subsistence)
as to the patient sportsman who lays snares for the birds
that are to serve for the dmner of his family ; and when
you hear

" the fluttering wing

And shriller sound declare extreme distress,"

you will as little think it the part of true mercy to stretch
forth "the helping hospitable hand" to the entrapped fly
as to the captive birds. The spider rcqiiues his meal as

I'OOD OF INSECTS. 4'27

well as the Indian : and, however to our weak capacity
the great law of creation " eat or be eaten" may seem
cruel or unnecessary, knowing as we do that it is the
ordinance of a beneficent Being, who does all things
well, and that in fact the sum of happiness is greatly
augmented by it, no man, who does not let a morbid
sensibility get the better of his judgement, will, on ac-
count of their subjection to this rule, look upon preda-
ceous animals with abhorrence.

One more instance of the stratagems of insects in pro-
curing their prey shall conclude this letter. Other ex-
amples might be adduced, but the enumeration would
be tedious. This, from an order of insects widely dif-
fering from that which includes the race of spiders, is
perhaps more curious and interesting than any of those
hitherto recited. The insect to which I allude, an in-
habitant of the south of Europe, is the larva of a species
of ant-lion {Myrmcleon, L.), so (Sailed from its singular
manners in this state. It belongs to a genus between
the dragon-fly and the Hemerobius. When full grown
its length is about half an inch : in shape it has a slight
resemblance to a wood-louse, but the outline of the body
is more triangular, the anterior part being considerably
wider than the posterior : it has six legs, and the mouth
is furnished with a forceps consisting of two incurved
jaws, which give it a formidable appearance^. If we
looked only at its external conformation and habits, we
should be apt to conclude it one t)f the most helpless ani-
mals in the creation. Its sole food is the juices of other
•' Flaxe XIX, Fig. 8

428 FOOD OF INSECTS.

insects, particularly ants, but at the first view it seems
impossible that it should ever secure a single meal. Not
only is its pace slow, but it can walk in no other direc-
tion than backwards; you may judge, therefore, what
would be such a hunter's chance of seizing an active ant.
Nor would a stationary posture be more favourable ; for
its grim aspect would infallibly impress upon all wander-
ers the prudence of keeping at a respectful distance.
What then is to become of our p oor ant-lion ? In its ap-
petite it is a perfect epicure, never, however great may
be its hunger, deigning to taste of a carcase unless it has
previously had the enjoyment of killing it ; and then ex-
tracting only the finer juices. In what possible way can
it contrive to supply such a succession of delicacies, when
its ordinary habits seem to unfit it for obtaining even the
coarsest provision ? You shall hear. It accomplishes
by artifice what all its open efforts would have been un-
equal to. It digs in loose sand a conical pit, in the bot-
tom of which it conceals itself, and there seizes upon the
insects which, chancing to stumble over the margin, are
precipitated down the sides to the centre. " How won-
derful !" you exclaim : but you will be still more sur-
prised when I have described the whole process by
which it excavates its trap, and the ingenious contri-
vances to which it has recourse.

Its first concern is to find a soil of loose dry sand, in
the neighbourhood of which, indeed, its provident mo-
ther has previously taken care to place it, and in a shel-
tered spot near an old wall, or at the foot of a tree. This
is necessary on two accounts : the prey most acceptable
to it abounds there, and no other soil would suit for the

FOOD OF INSECTS. 429

construction of Its snare. Its next step Is to trace In the
sand a circle, which, Uke the furrow with whicli Romuhis
marked out the Hmits of his new city, is to determine the
extent of its future abode. This being done, it pi'oceeds
to excavate the cavity by throwing out the sand in a
mode not less singular than effective. Placing itself in
the inside of the circle which it has traced, it thrusts the
hind part of its body under the sand, and with one of its
fore-legs, serving as a shovel, it charges its flat and square
head with a load, which it immediately throws over the
outside of the circle with a jerk strong enough to carry it
to the distance of several inches. This little manoeuvre
is executed with surprising promptitude and address. A
gardener does not operate so quickly or so well with
his spade and his foot, as the ant-lion with its head and
leg. — Walking backwards, and constantly repeating the
process, it soon arrives at the part of the circle from
which it set out. It then traces a new one, excavates
another furrow in a similar manner, and by a repetition
of these operations at length arrives at the centre of its
cavity. One circumstance deserves remark — that it
never loads its head with the sand lying on the outside
of the circle, though it would be as eas}^ to do this with
the outward leg, as to remove the sand within the circle
by the inner leg. But it knows that it is the sand in the
interior of the circle only that is to be excavated, and it
therefore constantly uses the leg next the centre. It will
readily occur, however, that to use one leg as a shovel
exclusively throughout the whole of such a toilsome ope-
ration, would be extremely wearisome and painful. For
this difficulty our ingenious pioneer has a resource. After

4-30 FOOD OF INSECTS.

finishing the excavation of one circular furrow, it traces
the next in an opposite direction ; and thus alternately
exercises each of its legs without tiring either.

In the course of its labours it frequently meets with
small stones : these it places upon its head one b}'^ one,
and jerks over the margin of the pit. But sometimes,
when near the bottom, a pebble presents itself of a size
so large that this process is impossible, its head not
being sufficiently broad and strong to bear so great a
weight, and the height being too considerable to admit
of projecting so large a body to the top. A more impa-
tient labourer would despair, but not so our insect. A
new plan is adopted. By a manoeuvre, not easily de-
scribed, it lifts the stone upon its back, keeps it in a
steady position by an alternate motion of the segments
which compose that part ; and carefully walking up the
ascent with the burthen, deposits it on the outside of the
margin. When, as occasionally happens, the stone is
round, the labour becomes most difficult and painful.
A spectator watching the motions of tlie ant-lion feels
an inexpressible interest in its behalf. He sees it with
vast exertion elevate the stone, and begin its arduous
retrograde ascent : at every moment the burthen totters
to one side or the other : the adroit porter lifts up the
segments of its back to balance it, and has already
nearly reached the top of the pit, when a stumble or a jolt
mocks all its effijrts, and the stone tumbles headlong to
the bottom. Mortified, but not despairing, the ant-lion
returns to the charge ; again replaces the stone on its
back ; again ascends the side, and artflilly avails himself,
for a road, of the channel fonned by the falling stone,

FOOD or INSECTS. 431

against tlie sides of which he can support his load. This
time possibly he succeeds ; or it may be, as is often the
case, the stone again rolls down. When thus unfortu-
nate, our little Sisyphus has been seen six times patiently
to renew his attempt, and was at last, as such heroic reso-
lution deserved, successful. It is only after a series of
trials have demonstrated the impossibility of succeeding
that our engineer yields to fate, and, quitting his half-
excavated pit, begins the formation of another.

When all obstacles are overcome, and the pit is
finished, it presents itself as a conical hole rather more
than two inches deep, gradually contracting to a point
at the bottom, and about three inches wide at the top^.
The ant-lion now takes its station at the bottom of the
pit, and, that its gruff appearance may not scare the
passengers which approach its den, covers itself with
sand all except the points of its expanded forceps. It
is not long before an ant on its travels, fearing no harm,
steps upon the margin of the pit, either accidentally or
for the purpose of exploring the depth below. Alas !
its curiosity is dearly gratified. The faithless sand
slides from under its feet; its struggles but hasten its
descent ; and it is precipitated headlong into the jaws
of the concealed devourer. Sometimes, howe^^er, it
chances that the ant is able to stop itself midway, and

* The nests of this animal which I saw at Fontainblean (in the
pit producing the fossil named after that place) were scarcely half
the dimensions here given, but they might probably be younger in-
sects. I kept one in a box of sand several days, in which it regu-
larly formed its pit, whenever obliterated by shaking. The bottom
of the box unfortunately came out as I was upon my return to Eng-
land, and the animal was killed.

432 FOOD OF INSECTS.

with all haste scrambles up agahi. No sooner does the
ant-hon perceive this, (for, being furnished with six
eyes on each side of his head, he is sufficiently sharp-
sighted,) than, shaking off his inactivity, he hastily
shovels loads of sand upon his head, and vigorously
throws them up in quick succession upon the esaping in-
sect, which, attacked by tuch a heavy shower from be-
low, and treading on so unstable a path, is almost in-
evitably carried to the bottom. The instant his victim
is fairly within reach, the ant-lion seizes him between
his jaws, which are admirable instruments, at the same
time hooked for holding, and hollow, furnished with a
lateral piston, for sucking, and at his leisure extracting
all the juices of. the body, regales upon formic acid.
The dry carcase he subsequently jerks out of his den,
that it may not encumber him in his future contests, or
betray the "horrid secrets of his prison-house:" and
if the sides of the pit have received any damage, he
leaves his concealment for awhile to repair it: which
having done, he resumes his station.

In this manner in its larva state this insect lives
nearly two years, during all which time it receives no
food but what has been cauo;ht through the artifice above
described. Though all living insects, for I have fed it
with flies, are equally acceptable to it, as the winged
tribe can easily take flight from its pit should they chance
to fall into it, its prey consists chiefly of apterous species,
of which ants form by far the largest portion, with occa-
sionally an unwary spider or wood-louse. When the
full period of its growth is attained it retires under the
sand ; spins with its anus a silken cocoon ; reniains a

FOOD OF INSECTS. 433

chrysalis a few weeks; and then breaks fortli a four-
winged insect resembhng, as before observed, tlie dragon-
fly both in appearance and manners, and preying in
like manner on moths, butterflies, and other insects =*.

The larva of Myrmeleon formicarius is not the only
insect wliicli avails itself of a trap for obtaining its prey.
A plan in most respects similar is adopted by that of a
fly [Rhagio Vermilio, F.) in form somewhat resembting-
the common flesh maggot. This also digs a- funnel-
shaped cavity in loose earth or sand, but deeper in pro-
portion to its width than that of M. formicarius, and ex-
cavated not by regular circles, but by throwing out the
earth obliquely on all sides. When its trap is finished,
it stretches itself near the bottom, remaining stiff and
without motion like a piece of wood, and the last seg-
ment bent at an angle with the rest, so as to form a strong
point of support in the struggles Avhich it often neces-
sarily has with vigorous prey. The moment an insect
falls into the pitfall, the larva writhes itself round it like
a serpent, transfixes it with its mandibles, and sucks its
juices at its ease. If the insect escapes, the larva casts
above it jets of sand with surprising rapidity ^.

I am, &c.

» Reaum. vi. 333-78, Bonnet, ii. 380.

^ Bonnet, ix. 414. De Geer, vi. 168. L 10.

VOL. I. 2 F

LETTER XIV

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

In forming an estimate of the civilization and intellec-
tual progress of a newly discovered people, we usually
pay attention to their buildings, and other proofs of
architectural skill. If we find them, like the wretched
inhabitants of Van Diemen's Land, without other abodes
than natural caverns or miserable penthouses of bark,
we at once regard them as tfie most ignorant and un-
humanized of their race. If, like the natives of the
South Sea Isles, they have advanced a step further, and
enjoy houses formed of timber, thatched with leaves,
and furnished with utensils of different kinds, we are
inclined to place them considerably higher in the scale.
When, as in the case of ancient Mexico, we discover a
nation inhabiting towns containing stone houses, regu-
larly disposed into streets, we do not hesitate without
other inquiry to decide that it must have been civilized
in no ordinary degree. And if it were to chance that
some future Park in Africa should stumble upon the
ruins of a large city, where, in addition to these proofs
of science, every building was constructed on just geo-
metrical and architectural principles; where the ma-
terials v/ere so employed as to unite strength with light-

• HABITATIONS OF INSFXTS. 435

ness, and a confined site so artfully occupied as to obtain
spacious symmetrical apartments, we should eagerly in-
quire into the history of the inhabitants, and sigh over
the remains of a race whose intellectual advances we
should infer with certainty were not inferior to our own.
Were we by the same test to estimate the sagacity of
the different classes of animals, we shoidd beyond all
doubt assign the highest place to insects, which in the
construction of their habitations leave all the rest far be-
hind. The nests of birds, from the rook's rude assem-
blage of sticks to the pensile dwellings of the tailor-bird,
wonderful as they doubtless are, are indisputably eclipsed
by the structures formed by many insects ; and the re-
gular villages of the beaver, by far the most sagacious
architect amongst quadrupeds, must yield the palm to a
wasp's nest. You will think me here guilty of exaggera-
tion, and that, blinded by my attachment to a favourite
pursuit, I am elevating the little objects, which I wish to
recommend to your study, to a rank beyond their just
claim. So far, however, am I from being conscious of
any such prejudice, that I do not hesitate to go further,
and assert that the pyramids of Egypt, as the work of
man, are not more wonderful for their size and solidity
than are the structures built by some insects.

To describe the most remarkable of these is my pre-
sent object : and that some method may be observed, I
shall in this letter describe the habitations of msects living
in a state of solitude, and built each by a single architect;
and in a subsequent one, those of insects living in soci-
eties, built by the united labours of manj^ The former
class may be conveniently subdivided into habitations

2 F 2

436 HABITATIONS OP INSECTS.

built by the parent insect, not for its ov.n use, but for the
convenience of its future young; and tliose which are
formed by the insect that inhabits them for its own accom-
modation. To tlie first I shall now call your attention.

The solitary insects which construct habitations for
their future young without any view to their own accom-
modation, chiefly belong to the order Hymejioptera, and
are principally difi'erent species of wild bees. Of these
the most simple are built by M. succincta, fodiens, and
other species of the first family of the genus Melitta^
Kirby {Colletes, Latr.). The situation which the parent
bee chooses, is either the dry earth of a bank, or the
vacuities of stone walls cemented with earth instead of
mortar. Having excavated a cylinder about two inches
m depth, running usually in a horizontal direction, the
bee occupies it with three or four cells about half an inch
long, and one-sixth broad, shaped like a thimble, the end
of one fittinjT into the mouth of another. The substance
of which these cells are formed is two or three layers of
a silky membrane, composed of a kind of glue secreted
by the animal, resembling gold-beater's leaf, but much
finer, and so thin and transparent tliat the colour of an
included object may be seen through them. As soon as
one cell is completed, the bee deposits an egg within, and
nearly fills it with a paste composed of pollen and honey;
which having done, she proceeds to form another cell,
storing it in like manner until the whole is finished, when
she carefully stops up the mouth of the orifice with earth.
Our countryman Grew seems to have found a series of
these nests in a singular situation— the middle of the

HABITATIONS OF JXSECTS. 137

pith of an old elder-branch — in wliich they were placed
lengthwise one alter another with a thin bountlary be-
tween each^.

Cells composed of a similar membranaceous substance,
but placed in a diflerent situation, are constructed by
AjJis manicata, L. This gay insect does not excavate
holes for their reception, but places them in the cavities
of old trees, or of any other object that suits its purpose.
Sir Thomas Cullum discovered the nest of one in the
mside of the lock of a garden-gate, in which I have also
since twice found them. It should seem, however, that
such situations would be too cold for the grubs without
a coating of some non-conducting substance. The pa-
rent bee, therefore, after having constructed the cells, laid
an agg in each, and filled them with a store of suitable
food, plasters them with a covering of vermiform masses,
apparently composed of honey and pollen ; and having
done this, aware, long before Count Rumford's experi-
ments, what materials conduct heat most slowly, she at-
tacks the woolly leaves of Stachys lanata, Agrostemma
coronaria, and similar plants, and with her mandibles in-
dustriously scrapes off' the wool, which with her fore legs
she rolls into a little ball and carries to her nest. This
wool she sticks upon the plaster that covers her cells,
and thus closely envelops them with a warm coating of
down impervious to every change of temperature ^.
The bee last described may be said to exercise the

" Grew's Rarities of Gresham CoUedge, 154. Kii'by Mon. Ap.
Angl.'i. 131. Mclitta.*. a.

'' Mmi. Ap. Angl, i. 173. Apis **. c. 2. x. From later observations
I am iiiclined to think that these cells may possibly, as in the case of
the himible-bge, be in fact formed by the larva previously to becoiu-

438 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

trade of a clothier. Another numerous family would be
more properly compared to carpenters, boring with in-
credible labour out of the solid wood long cylindrical
tubes, and dividing them mto various cells. Amongst
these, one of the most remarkable is the Ajns violacea^ L.
{Xylocopa, Latr.), a large species, a native of Southern
Europe, distinguished by beautiful wings of a deep violet
colour, and found commonly in gardens, in the upright
putrescent espaliers or vine-props of which, and occasion-
ally in the garden seats, doors and window-shutters, she
makes her nest. In the beginning of spring, after re-
peated and careful surveys, she fixes upon a piece of wood
suitable for her purpose, and with her strong mandibles
begins the process of boring. First proceeding obliquely
downwards, she soon points her course in a direction
parallel with the sides of the wood, and at length with
unwearied exertion forms a cylindrical hole or tunnel not
less than twelve or fifteen inches long; and half an inch
broad. Sometimes, where the diameter will admit of it,
three or four of these pipes, nearly parallel with each
other, are bored in the same piece. Herculean as this
task, which is the labour of several days, appears, it is
but a small part of what our industrious bee cheerfully
undertakes. As yet she has completed but the shell of
the destined habitation of her offspring ; each of which,
to the number of ten or twelve, will require a separate
and distinct apartment. How, you will ask, is she to

ing a pupa, after having eaten the provision of pollen and honey with
which the parent bee had surrounded it. The vermicular shape,
however, of the masses with which the cases are surrounded, does
not seem easily reconcileable with this supposition, unless they are

(Ontiidcrcd ai^ the excrement of the larva.

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 439

form these ? With what materials can she construct the
floors and ceihngs ? Why truly God " doth instruct her
to discretion and doth teach her." In excavating her
tunnel she has detached a large quantity of fibres, which
lie on the ground like a heap of saw-dust. This material
supplies all her wants. Having deposited an egg at the
bottom of the cylinder along with the requisite store of
pollen and honey, she next, at the height of about three
quarters of an inch, (which is the depth of each cell,) con-
structs of particles of the saw-dust glued together, and
also to the sides of the tunnel, what may be called an an-
nular stage or scaffolding. When this is sufficiently hard-
ened, its interior edge affi^rds support for a second ring
of the same materials, and thus the ceiling is gradually
formed of these concentric circles, till there remains only
a small orifice in its centre, which is also closed with
a circular mass of agglutinated particles of saw-dust.
When this partition, which serves as the ceiling of the
first cell and the flooring of the second, is finished, it is
about the thickness of a crown-piece, and exhibits the ap-
pearance of as many concentic circles as the animal has
made pauses in her labour. One cell being finished, she
proceeds to another, which she furnishes and completes
in the same manner, and so on until she has divided her
whole tunnel into ten or twelve apartments.

Here, if you have followed me in this detail with the
interest which I wish it to inspire, a query will suggest
itself. It will strike you that such a laborious undertaking:
as the constructing and furnishing these cells, cannot be
the work of one or even of two days. Considering that
every cell requires a store of honey and pollen, not to be

410 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

collected but with long toil, and that a considerable in-
terval must be spent in agglutinating the floors of each,
it will be very obvious to you that the last egg ui the last
cell must be laid many days after the first. We are cer-
tain, therefore, that the first egg will become a grub, and
consequently a perfect bee, many days before the last.
What then becomes of it ? you will ask. It is impossible
that it should make its escape through eleven superincum-
bent cells without destroying the immature tenants ; and
it seems equally impossible that it should remain patiently
in confinement below them until they are all disclosed.
This dilemma our heaven-taught architect has provided
against. With foretlioug-ht never enouoh to be admired
she has not constructed her tunnel with one opening only,
but at the further end has pierced another orifice, a kind
of back-door, through which the insects produced by the
first-laid eggs successively emerge into day. In fact, all
the young bees, even the uppermost, go out by this road ;
for, by an exquisite instinct, each grub, when about to
become a pupa, places itself in its cell with its head down-
wards, and thus is necessitated, when arrived at its last
state, to pierce its cell in this direction^.

Ceratina albilabris of Spinola, who has given an inter-
esting account of its manners, [Prosopis, F., Melitta *. b.
Ku'by,) forms its cell upon the general plan of the bee
just described, but, more economical of labour, chooses a
branch of briar or bramble, in the pith of which she ex-
cavates a canal about a foot long and one line, or some-
times more, in diameter, with from eight to twelve cells

^ Reaum. vi. 39-50. Motu Ap. Augl. i. 189. Apis * * a. 2. 3.

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS, 4 U

separated from each other by partitions of particles of
pith glued together^.

Such are the curious habitations of the carpenter bees.
Next I shall introduce you to the not less interesting
structures of another family which carry on the trade of
masons, building their solid houses solely of artificial
stone. The first step of the mother bee, AjJts muraria,
Oliv. [AntJiojjhora, F., MegacJiilc, Latr.) is to fix upon
a proper situation for the future mansion of her offspring.
For this she usually selects an angle, sheltered by any
projection, on the south side of a stone wall. Her next
care is to provide materials for the structure. The chief
of these is sand, which she carefully selects grain by
grain from such as contains some mixture of earth.
These grains she glues together with her viscid saliva
into masses the size of small shot, and transports by
means of her jaws to the site of her castle ''. With a
number of these masses, which are the artificial stone of
which her building is to be composed, united by a ce-
ment preferable to ours, she first forms the basis or foun-
dation of the whole. Next she raises the walls of a cell,
which is about an inch in length and half an inch broad,
and before its orifice is closed in form resembles a thim-
ble. This, after depositmg an eg^ and a supply of ho-
ney and pollen, she covers in, and then proceeds to the
erection of a second, which she finishes in the same man-
ner, until the whole number, which varies from four to

^ Ann. du Mus. x. 23()'. ** Reaumur plausibly supposes that

it has been from observing this bee thus loaded, that the tale mention-
ed by Aristotle and Pliny, of the hive-bee's ballasting itself with a
bit of stone previously to flying home in a high wind, has arisen.

44-2 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

eight, is completed. The vacuities between the cells,
which are not placed in any regular order, some being
parallel to the wall, others perpendicular to it, and others
inclined to it at different angles, this laborious architect
fills up with the same material of which the cells are
composed, and then bestows upon the whole group a
common covering of coarser grams of sand. The form
of the whole nest, which when finished is a solid mass
of stone so hard as not to be easily penetrated with the
blade of a knife, is an irregular oblong of the same co-
lour as the sand, and to a casual observer more resem-
bling a splash of mud than an artificial structure. These
bees sometimes are more economical of their labour,
and repair old nests, for the possession of which they
have very desperate combats. One would have sup-
posed that the inhabitants of a castle so fortified might
defy the attacks of every insect marauder. Yet an Ich-.
neumon and a beetle {Clerus apiarius, F.) both contrive
to introduce their eggs into the cells, and the larvae pro-
ceeding from them devour their inhabitants^.

Other bees of the same family with that last described,
use difl^erent materials in the construction of their nests.
Some employ fine earth made into a kind of mortar with
gluten. Another (A. aerulescens, L.), as we learn from
De Geer, forms its nest of argillaceous earth mixed with
chalk, upon stone walls, and sometimes probably nidifi-
cates in chalk-pits. Apis bicoryiis, L. selects the hollows
of large stones for the site of its dwelling ; while others
prefer the holes in wood.

The works tlius far described require in general less
= Rcuum. vi. 57'B8. JSIoii. Ap, Jug/, i. 1 70.

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 4 13

genius than labour and patience : but it is far otherwise
with the nests of the last tribe of artificers amongst wild
bees, to which I shall advert — the hangers of tapestry,
or upholsterers — those which line the holes excavated
in the earth for the reception of their young, with an ele-
gant coating of flowers or of leaves. Amongst the most
interesting of these is Apis Papaveris, {Megachile, Latr.
Antliophora., F.) a species whose manners have been ad-
mirably described by Reaumur. This little bee, as though
fascinated with the colour most attractive to our eyes,
invariably chooses for the hangings of her apartments
the most brilliant scarlet, selecting for its material the
petals of the wild poppy, which she dexterously cuts
into the proper form. Her first process is to excavate
in some pathway a burrow, cylindrical at the entrance
but swelled out below, to the depth of about three inches.
Having polished the walls of this little apartment, she
next flies to a neighbouring field, cuts out oval portions
of the flowers of poppies, seizes them between her legs
and returns with them to her cell ; and though separated
from the wrinkled petal of a half-expanded flower, she
knows how to straighten their folds, and, if too lai-ge, to
fit them for her purpose by cutting off the superfluous
parts. Beginning at the bottom, she overlays the walls
of her mansion with this brilliant tapestry, extending it
also on the surface of the ground round the margin of
the orifice. The bottom is rendered warm by three or
four coats, and the sides have never less than two. The
little upholsterer, having completed the hangings of her
apartment, next fills it with pollen and honey to the
height of about half an inch ; then, after committing an

444 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

egg to it, slie wraps over the poppy lining so tliat even
the roof may be of this material ; and lastly closes its
mouth with a small hillock of earth ^. The great depth
of the cell compared with the space which the single egg
and the accompanying food deposited in it occupy, de-
sei'V'es particular notice. This is not more than half an
inch at the bottom, the remaining two inches and a half
being subsequently filled with earth. — V/hen you next
favour me with a visit, I can show you the cells of tliis
interesting insect as yet unknown to British entomolo-
iiists, for which I am indebted to the kindness of M. La-
treille, who first scientifically described the species^.

Apis centuncularis, A, Willughbiella, and other species
of the same family, like the preceding, cover the walls of
their cells with a coating of leaves, but are content with
a more sober colour, generally selectmg for their hang-
ings the leaves of trees, especially of the rose, whence
they have been known by the name of the leqf-ciittei'
bees. They differ also from A. Papaveris in excavating
longer burrows, and filling them with several thunble-
shaped cells composed of portions of leaves so curiously
convoluted, tliat, if we were ignorant in what school they
have been taught to consti'uct them, we should never
credit their being the work of an insect. Their enter-
taining history, so long ago as 1670, attracted the atten-
tion of oiu: countr;yanen Ray, Lister, Wiilughby, and
Sir Edward King; but we are indebted for the most
complete account of their procedures to Reaumur.

The mother bee first excavates a cylindrical hole
eight or ten inches long, in a horizontal direction, either
^ Rcaum. vi. 139-148. •* Latr. Hist, Kal. dcs Fourmis, 297-

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 445

in the ground or in tlie trunk of a rotten willow-tree, or
occasionally in other decaying wood. This cavity she
fills with six or seven cells wholly composed of portions
of leaf, of the shape of a thimble, the convex end of one
closely fitting into the open end of another. Her first
process is to form the exterior coating, which is com-
posed of tliree or four pieces of larger dimensions than
the rest, and of an oval form. The second coatino; is
tbrmed of portions of equal size, narrow at one end but
gradually v/idening towards the other, where the width
equals half the length. One side of these pieces is the
serrate margin of the leaf from which it was taken, which,
as the pieces are made to lap one over the other, is kept
on the outside, and that which has been cut within. The
little animal now forms a third coating of similar mate-
rials, the middle of which, as the most skilful workman
would do in similar circumstances, she places over the
margins of those that form the first tube, thus coverinor
and strengthening the junctures. Repeating the same
process, she gives a fourth and sometimes a fifth coating
to her nest, taking care, at the closed end or narrow ex-
tremity of the cell, to bend the leaves so as to form a
convex termination. Having thus finished a cell, her
next business is to fill it to within half a line of the ori-
fice, with a rose-coloured conserve composed of honey
and pollen, usually collected from the flowers of thistles ;
and then having deposited her egg, she closes the orifice
with three pieces of leaf so exactly circular, that a pair
of compasses could not define their margin with more
truth ; and coinciding so precisely with the walls of the

44)6 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

cell, as to be retained in their situation merely by the
nicety of their adaptation. After this covering is fitted in,
there remains still a concavity which receives the convex
end of the succeeding cell ; and in this manner the inde-
fatigable little animal proceeds until she has completed
the six or seven cells which compose her cylinder.

The process which one of these bees employs in cut-
ting the pieces of leaf that compose her nest is worthy of
attention. Nothing can be more expeditious : she is not
longer about it than we should be with a pair of scissors.
After hovering for some moments over a rose-bush, as
if to reconnoiti'e the ground, the bee alights upon the
leaf which she has selected, usually taking her station
upon its edge so that the margin passes between her legs.
With her strong mandibles she cuts without intermis-
sion in a curve line so as to detach a triangular portion.
When this hangs by the last fibre, lest its weight should
carry her to the ground, she balances her little wings for
flight, and the very moment it parts from the leaf flies
off with it in triumph ; the detached portion remaining
bent between her legs in a direction perpendicular to
her body. Thus without rule or compasses do these
diminutive creatures mete out the materials of their work
into portions of an ellipse, into ovals or circles, accu-
rately accommodating the dimensions of the several pieces
of each fioure to each other. What other architect could
carry impressed upon the tablet of his memory the en-
tire idea of the edifice which he has to erect, and, desti-
tute of square or plumb-line, cut out his materials in
their exact dimensions without making a single mistake ?

IIABITATIOXS OF INSECTS. 447

Yet this is wliat oui* little bee invariably does. So far
are human art and reason excelled by the teaching of
the Almighty*.

Other insects besides bees construct habitations of dif-
ferent kinds for their young, as various species of Sphex,
Scarabo'us, &c., which deposit their eggs in cylindrical
excavations that become the abode of the future larvfB.
In the procedures of most of these, nothing worth par-
ticularizing occurs ; but one species called by Reaumur
the mason- wasp, [Odi/nerus 7nuraria, Latr.) referred to
in a former letter, works upon so singular a plan, that it
would be improper to pass it over in silence, especially
as these nests may be found in this country in most sandy
banks exposed to the sun. This insect bores a cylindri-
cal cavity from two to three inches deep, in hard sand
which its mandibles alone would be scarcely capable of
penetrating, were it not provided with a slightly gluti-
nous liquor which it pours out of its mouth, that, like the
vinegar with which Hannibal softened the Alps, acts
upon the cement of the sand, and renders the separation
of the grains easy to the double pickaxe with which our
little pioneer is furnished. But the most remarkable
circumstance is the mode in which it disposes of the ex-
cavated materials. Instead of throwing them at random
on a heap, it carefully forms them into little oblong pel-
lets, and arranges them round the entrance of the hole
so as to form a tunnel, which, when the excavation is
completed, is often not less than two or three inches in
length. For the greater part of its height this tunnel is
upright, but towards the top it bends into a curve, al-

* Reaum. vi. 971-34. Mon. Ap. Av^l. i. 157. Apis **. c. 3. ».

448 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

ways liowever retaining its cylindrical form. The little
masses are so attached to each other in this cylinder, as
to leave numerous vacuities between them, which oive it
the appearance of filagree-work. You will readily divine
that the excavated hole is intended for the reception of
an egg, but for what purpose the external tunnel is meant
is not so apparent. One use, and perhaps the most im-
portant, would seem to be to prevent the incursions of
the artful Ichneumons, Clirysidoe^ &c. which are ever on
the watch to insinuate their parasitic young into the nests
of other insects : it may render their access to the nest
more difficult ; they may dread to enter into so long and
dark a defile. I have seen, however, more than once a
Chrysis come out of these tunnels. That its use is only
temporary, is plain from the circumstance that the insect
employs the whole fabric, when its egg is laid and store
of food procured, in filling up the remaining vacuity of
the hole ; taking down the pellets, which are very con-
veniently at hand, and placing them in it until the en-
trance is filled*. — Latreille informs us, that a nearly
similar tunnel, but composed of grains of earth, is built
at the entrance of its cell by a bee of his family of
pioneers^.

Under this head, too, may be most conveniently ar-
ranged the very singular habitations of the larva? of the
Linnagan genus Cynips, the gall-fly, though they can
with no propriety be said to be constructed by the mo-
ther, who, provided with an instrument as potent as an
.enchanter's wand, has but to pierce the site of the foun-
dation, and commodious apartments, as if by magic,
" Reauni. vi. 251-7. /. xxvi. f. 1. '^ Latr. Fourmh, 419.

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 44'9

Spring up and surround the germe of her future de-
scendants. I allude to those vegetable excrescencies
termed galls, some of which resembling beautiful berries
and others apples, you must have frequently observed
on the leaves of the oak, and of which one species, the
Aleppo gall, as I have before noticed, is of such impor-
tance in the ingenious art " de peindre la j^arole et de
parler aux yeux." All these tumours owe their origin to
the deposition of an egg in the substance out of which
they grow. This egg, too small almost for perception,
the parent insect, a little four- winged fly, introduces into
a puncture made by her curious spiral sting, and in a
few hours it becomes surrounded with a fleshy chamber,
which not only serves its young for shelter and defence,
but also for food ; the future little hermit feeding upon
its interior and there undergoing its metamorphosis.
Nothing can be more varied than these habitations.
Some are of a globular form, a bright red colour, and
smooth fleshy consistence, resembling beautiful fruits,
for which indeed, as you have before been told, they are
eaten in the Levant : others, beset with spines or clothed
with hair, are so much like seed-vessels, that an eminent
modern chemist has contended respecting the Aleppo
gall, that it is actually a ca.psule*. Some are exactly
round ; others like little mushrooms ; others resemble
artichokes ; while others again might be taken for flow-
ers : in short, they are of a hundred different forms, and

' Aikin's Dictionary of Chemistry, i. 455, What have probably
been taken by Mr. Aikin for " kernels," in the imperforated nuts,
are the cocoons of the inhabitants of these galls in the pupa state,
which often extremely resemble the seeds of a capsule, as Reaumur
(iii. 429.) has remarked.

VOL. I. 2 G

450 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

of all sizes from that of a pin's head to that of a walnut.
Nor is their situation on the plant less diversified. Some
are found upon the leaf itself; others upon the footstalks
only; others upon the roots ; and others upon the buds^.
Some of them cause the branches upon which they grow
to shoot out into such singular forms, that the plants pro-
ducing them were esteemed by the old botanists distinct
species. Of this kind is the Hose-'voillow, which old Ge-
rard figures and describes as " not only making a gallant
shew, but also yeelding a most cooling aire in the heat
of summer, being set up in houses for the decking of the
same." Tliis willow is nothing more than one of the
common species, whose twigs, in consequence of the de-
position of the egg of a Cynips in their summits, there
shoot out into numerous leaves totally different in shape
from the other leaves of the tree, and arranged not much
unlike those composing the flower of a rose, adhering to
the stem even after the others fall off. Sir James Smith
mentions a similar lusiis on the Provence willows, which
at first he took for a tufted lichen^. From the same
cause the twifjs of the common wild rose often shoot out
into a beautiful tuft of numerous reddish moss-like fibres
wholly dissimilar from the leaves of the plant, deemed
by the old naturalists a very valuable medical substance,
to which they erroneously gave the name of Bedegiiar.
None of these variations is accidental or common to se-
veral of the tribe, but each peculiar to the galls formed
b}' a single and distinct species of Cynips.

How the mere insertion of an egg into the substance
of a leaf or twig, even if accompanied, as some imagine,
* Roaum. iii. 417 <!v:c. '' Intrnd. (n Botanj/, 349.

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 451

by a peculiar fluid, should cause the growth of such sin-
gular protuberances around it, philosophers are as little
able to explain, as why the insertion of a particle of va-
riolous matter into a child's arm should cover it with pus-
tules of small pox. In both cases the effects seem to pro-
ceed from some action of the foreign substance upon the
secreting vessels of the animal or vegetable : but of the
nature of this action we know nothing. Thus much is
ascertained by the observations of Reaumur and Malpighj
— that the production of the gall, which however large at-
tains its fidl size in a day or two ^, is caused by the egg or
some accompanying fluid : not by the larva, which does
not appear until the gall is fully formed^; that the galls
which spring from leaves almost constantly take their
origin from nerves '^ ; and that the egg, at the same time
that it causes the growth of the gall, itself derives nourish-
ment from the substance that surrounds it, becoming
considerably larger before it is hatched than it was when
flrst deposited*^. — When chemically analysed, galls are
found to contain only the same principles as the plant from
which they spring, but in a more concentrated state.

No productions of nature seem to have puzzled the an-
cient philosophers more than galls. The commentator
on Dioscorides, Mathiohis, who agreeably to the doctrine
of those days ascribed their origin to spontaneous gene-
ration, gravely informs us that weighty prognostications
as to the events of the ensuing year may be deduced from
ascertaining whether they contain spiders, worms, or flies.
Other philosophers, who knew that except by rare acci-
dent no other animals are to be found in galls, besides

» Reauni. iii. 474. '' Ibid. 479. • Ibid. .'>01. << Ibid. 470.
2 c; 2

452 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

grubs of different kinds which they rationally conceived
to spring from eggs, were chiefly at a loss to account for
the conveyance of these eggs into the middle of a substance
in which they could find no external orifice. They there-
fore inferred that they were the eggs of insects deposited
in the earth, which had been drawn up by the roots of
trees along with the sap, and after passing through differ-
ent vessels had stopped, some in the leaves, others in the
twigs, and had there hatched and produced galls ! Redi's
solution of the difficulty was even more extraordinary.
This philosopher, who had so triumphantly combated the
absurdities of spontaneous generation, fell himself into
greater. Not having been able to witness the deposition
of eggs by the parent flies in the plants that produce galls,
he took it for granted that the grubs which he found with-
in them could not spring from eggs : and he was equally
unwilling to admit their origin from spontaneous genera-
tion,— an admission which would have been fatal to his
own most brilliant discoveries. He therefore cut the knot,
by supposing that to the same vegetative soul by which
fruits and plants are produced, is committed the charge of
creating the larvae found in galls * ! An instance truly hu-
miliating, how little we can infer from a man's just ideas
on one point, that he will not be guilty of the most pitiable
absurdity on another !

Though by far the greater part of the vegetable ex-
crescencies termed galls, are caused by insects of the genus
CynipSf they do not always originate from this tribe.
Sotne are produced by beetles, as those on thfe roots of
kedlock {Sinapis arvensis)^ which I have ascertained to
» De Inscctk, 233 SiC.

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 453

be inhabited by the larvae of Curculio contrnclus^ Ent.
Brit., and Wiijnch<jenus assimilis, F. From the knob-like
galls on turnips, called in some places the anhury^ I have
bred another weevil, [Curxulio plcuj-ostigma, Ent. Brit,,
Rhynchceims sulclcollis^ Gyll.) and I have little doubt that
the same insects, or species allied to them, cause the club-
bing of the roots of cabbages. It seems to be a beetle of
the same family that is figured by Reaumur *, as causing
the galls on the leaves of the lime-tree. Others owe
their origin to moths, as those resembling a nutmeg which
Reaumur received from Cyprus''; and others again to
two-winged flies, as the woody galls of the thistle caused
by Tephritis {Miisca, L.) Cardui'^, and the cottony galls
found on ground ivy, wild thyme, &c., as well as a very
singular one on the juniper resembling a flower, described
by De Geer'*, all which are the work of minute gall-gnats
{Cecidomyice,\u?iXx., Tipulce^ h.). Some of these last con-
vert even the flowers of plants into a kind of galls, as
T. Loti of De Geer % which inhabits the blossoms of Lotus
coniiculaius ; and one which I have myself observed to
render the flowers of Erysimum Barbarca like a hop
blossom. A similar monstrous appearance is commun
cated to the flowers of Teucrium siqmiuin by a little fieldi
bug, Cmex {Tingis, F.) Teucrii of Host^, and to another
plant of the same genus by one of the same tribe de-
scribed by Reaumur ?. In these two last instances, how-
ever, the habitations do not seem strictly entitled to the
appellation of galls, as they originate not from the egg,

» Reaum. iii. t. 38. f. 2, 3. '' Ibid. iii. 448. ^ Ibid. 455.

•^ De Geer, vi, 409. « Ibid. 421.

' Jacquin Cvl/ecf. ii. 355, ^ Reauni. iii. 4'37.

454- HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

but from the larva, which, in the operation of extracting
the sap, in some way imparts a morbid action to the
juices, causing the flower to expand unnaturally : and
the same remark is applicable to the gall-like swellings
formed by many Aphides, as A. Pistacice, which causes
the leaves of different species of Pistacia to expand into
red finger-like cavities ; A. Pini, which converts the buds
or young shoots of the fir into a very beautiful gall,
somewhat resembling a fir-cone, or a pine-apple in mi-
niature; and A. Bursaria, which with its brood inha-
bits angular utriculi on the leafstalk of the black poplar,
numbers of which I observed this year on those trees by
the road-side from Hull to Cottingham. — The majority
of oralis are what entomoloo-ists have denominated mono-
thalamous, or consisting of only one chamber or cell ;
but some are poly thalamous, or consisting of several.

Having thus described the most remarkable of the ha-
bitations constructed by the parent insects for the accom-
modation of their future yoimg, I proceed to the second
kind mentioned, namely, those which are Ibrmed by the
insect itself for its own use. These may be again sub-
divided into such as are the work of the insects in their
larva state ; and such as are formed by perfect insects.

Many larvas of all orders need no other habitations
than the holes which they form in seeking for, or eat-
ing, the substances upon which they feed. Of this de-
scription are the majority of subterranean larvae, and
those which feed on wood, as the BostricM, F. or laby-
rinth beetles ; the Anobia, F. which excavate the little
circular holes firequently met with in ancient furniture

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 4:55

and the wood work of old houses ; and many hirvae of
other orders, particularly Lepidoptera. One of these
last, the larva of Bombijx Cossus, differs from its conge-
ners in fabricating for its residence during winter a ha-
bitation of pieces of wood lined with fine silk*. Under
this division, too, come the singular habitations of the
subcutaneous larva^, so called from the circumstance of
their feeding upon the parenchyma included between the
upper and under cuticles of the leaves of plants, between
which, though the whole leaf is often not thicker than a
sheet of writing-paper, they find at once food and lodg-
ing. You must have been at some time struck by certain
white zigzag or labyrinth-like lines on the leaves of the
dandelion, bramble, and numerous other plants: the
next time you meet with one of them, if you hold it up
to the light you will perceive that the colour of these
lines is owing to the pulpy substance of the leaf having
there been removed ; and at the further end you will
probably remark a dark-coloured speck, which, when
cai'efully extricated from its covering, you will find to be
the little miner of the tortuous galleries which you are
admiring. Some of these minute larvee, to which the
parenchyma of a leaf is a vast country, requiring several
weeks to be traversed by the slow process of mining which
they adopt — that of eating the excavated materials as
they proceed — are transformed into beetles (Curcidio
Thapsus, &c.) ; others into flies ; and a still greater
number into very minute moths of the genus Tinea, as
T. JVilkella, T. ClerMla, &c. Many of these last are
little miracles of nature, which has lavished on them the
■» l,yonc{,AiiaL •</ Co^ix. V,

i'56 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

most splendid tints tastefully combined with gold, silver
and pearl : so that, were they but formed upon a larger
scale, they would far eclipse all other animals in richness
of decoration.

Another tribe of larvae, not very numerous, content
themselves for their habitations with simple holes, into
which they retire occasionally. Many of these are merely
cylindrical burrows in the ground, as those formed by
the larvae of field-crickets, Cicindelae and Ephemerae.
But the larvae of the very remarkable lepidopterous ge-
nus [Nycterobius of Mr. MacLeay) before alluded to',
excavate for themselves dwellings of a more artificial
construction ; forming cylindrical holes in the trees of
New Holland, particularly the different species ofBank^
siUf to which they are very destructive, and defending
the entrance against the attacks of the Mantes and other
carnivorous insects by a sort of ti-ap-door composed of
silk interwoven with leaves and pieces of excrement, se-
curely fastened at the upper end, but left loose at the
lower for the free passage of the occupant. This abode
they regularly quit at sun-set, for the purpose of laying
in a store of the leaves on which they feed. These they
drag by one at a time into their cell until the approach
of light, when they retreat precipitately into it, and there
remain closely secluded the whole day, enjoying the
booty which their nocturnal range has provided. One
species lifts up the loose end of its door by its tail, and
enters backward, dragging after it a leaf of Banksia ser-
rata, which it holds by the footstalk''. '

' P. 304, 393.

' Lewin's Frodromus Entomology (sic !), p. 8.

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. IS?

A third description of larvae, chiefly of the two lepi-
dopterous genera Tortrix and Tijiea, form into conve-
nient habitations the leaves of the plants on which they
feed. Some of these merely connect together with a few
silken threads several leaves so as to form an irregular
packet, in the centre of which the Uttle hermit lives.
Others confine themselves to a single leaf, of which they
simply fold one part over the other. A third description
form and inhabit a sort of roll, by some species made
cylindrical, by others conical, resembling the papers
into which grocers put their sugar, and as accurately
constructed, only there is an opening left at the smaller
extremity for the egress of the insect in case of need. If
you were to see one of these rolls, you would immediately
ask by what mechanism it could possibly be made — how
an insect without fingers could contrive to bend a leaf
into a roll, and to keep it in that form until fastened with
the silk which holds it together ? The following is the
operation. The little caterpillar first fixes a series of
silken cables from one side of the leaf to the other. She
next pulls at these cables with her feet; and when she
has forced the sides to approach, she fastens them toge-
ther with shorter threads of silk. If the insect finds that
one of the larger nerves of the leaf is so strong as to re-
sist her efforts, she weakens it by gnawing it here and
there half through. What engineer could act more sa-
gaciously ? — To form one of the conical or horn-shaped
rolls, which are not composed of a whole leaf, but of a
long triangular portion cut out of the edge, some other
manoeuvres are requisite. Placing herself upon the leaf,
the caterpillar cuts out with her jaws the piece which ii>.

458 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

to compose her roll. She does not however entirely de-
tach it : it would then want a base. She detaches that
part only which is to form the contour of the horn. This
portion is a triangular strap, which she rolls as she cuts.
When the body of the horn is finished, as it is intended
to be fixed upon the leaf in nearly an upright position, it
is necessary to elevate it. To effect this, she proceeds as
we should with an inclined obelisk. She attaches threads
or little cables towards the point of the pyramid, and
raises it by the weight of her body*.

A still greater degree of dexterity is manifested in
fabricating the habitations of the larvae of some other
Tineae which feed on the leaves of the rose-tree, apple,
elm, and oak, on the under-side of which they may in
summer be often found* These form an oblong cavity
in the interior of a leaf by eating the parenchyma be-
tween the two membranes composing its upper and under
side, which, after having detached them from the sur-
rounding portion, it joins with silk so artfully that tlie
seams are scarcely discoverable even with a lens, so as to
compose a case or horn, cylindrical in the middle, its
anterior orifice circular, its posterior triangular. Were
this dwelling cylindrical in every part, the form of the
two pieces that compose it would be very simple; but
the different shape of the two ends renders it necessary
that each side should have peculiar and dissimilar cur-
vatures; and Reaumur assures us, that these are as
complex and difficult to imitate as the contours of the
pieces of cloth that compose the back of a coat. Some
of this tribe, whose proceedings I had the pleasure of
» Bonnet, ix. 188.

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 459

witnessing a short time since upon the ahlers in the I lull
Botanic Garden, more ingenious than their brethren,
and wilhng to save the labour of sewing up two scams in
their dwelling, insinuate themselves near the edge of a
leaf instead of in its middle. Here they form their ex-
cavation, mining into the very crenatures between the
two surfaces of the leaf, which, being joined together at
the edge, there form one seam of the case, and from their
dentated figure give it a very singuhir appearance, not
unhke that of some fishes which have fins upon their
backs. The opposite side they are necessarily forced to
cut and sew up, but even in this operation tliey show an
ingenuity and contrivance worthy of admiration. The
Tineas, which cut out tlieir suit from the middle of the
leaf, wholly detach the two surfaces that compose it be-
fore they proceed to join them together, the serrated in-
cisions made by their teeth, which, if they do not cut as
fast, in this respect are more effective than any scissors,
interlacing each other so as to support the separated
portions until they are properly joined. But it is ob-
vious that this process cannot be followed by those
Tinea? which cut out their house from the edge of a leaf.
If these were to detach the inner side before they had
joined the two pieces together, the builder as well as his
dwelling would inevitably fall. They therefore, before
making any incision, prudently run (as a sempstress
would call it) loosely together in distant points the two
membranes on that side. Then putting out their heads
they cut the intermediate portions, carefully avoiding the
larger nerves of the leaf; afterwards they sew up the de-
t-.iclicd sides incrc closclvj and only intersect the nerves

460 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

when their labour is completed*. — The habitation made
by a Tinea, which lives upon a species of Astragalusy is
in like manner formed of the epidermis of the leaves, but
in this several corrugated pieces project over each other,
so as to resemble the furbelows once in fashion''.

Other larvae construct their habitations wholly of silk.
Of this description is that of a Tinea, whose abode, ex-
cept as to the materials which compose it, is formed on
the same general plan as that just described, and the
larva in like manner feeds only on the parenchyma of
the leaf. In the beginning of spring, if you examine
the leaves of your pear-trees, you will scarcely fail to
meet with some beset on the under surface with several
perpendicular downy russet-coloured projections, about
a quarter of an inch high, and not much thicker than a
pin, of a cylindrical shape, with a protuberance at the
base, and altogether resembling at first sight so many
spines growing out of the leaf. You would never sus-
pect that these could be the habitations of insects ; yet
that they are is certain. Detach one of them, and give
it a gentle squeeze, and you will see emerge from the
lower end a minute caterpillar with a yellowish body
and black head. Examine the place from which you
liave removed it, and you will perceive a round excava-
tion in the cuticle and parenchyma of the leaf, the size of
the end of the tube by which it was concealed. This
excavation is the work of the above-mentioned cater-
pillar, which obtains its food by moving its little tent
from one part of the leaf to the other, and eating away
the space immediately under it. It touches no other
» Reaum. iii. 100-120. '' Ibid. 146

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 461

part ; and when these insects abound, as they often do
to the great injury otpear trees*, you will perceive every
leaf bristled with them, and covered with little withered
specks, the vestiges of their former meals. The case in
which the caterpillar resides, and which is quite essential
to its existence, is cdmposed of silk spun from its mouth
almost as soon as it is excluded from the egg. As it in-
creases in size, it enlarges its habitation by slitting it in
two, and introducing a strip of new materials. But the
most curious circumstance in the history of this little
Arab is the mode by which it retains its tent in a per-
pendicular posture. This it effects partly by attaching
silken threads from the protuberance at the base to the
surrounding surface of the leaf. But being not merely
a mechanician, but a profound natural philosopher well
acquainted with the properties of air, it has another re-
source when any extraordinary violence threatens to
overturn its slender turret. It forms a vacuum in the
protuberance at the base, and thus as effectually fastens
it to the leaf as if an air-pump had been employed !
This vacuum is caused by the insect's retreating on the
least alarm up its narrow case, which its body completely
fills, and thus leaving the space below free of air. In
detaching one of these cases you may easily convince
yourself of the fact. If you seize it suddenly while the
insect is at the bottom, you will find that it is readily
pulled offi the silken cords giving way to a very slight
force ; but if, proceeding gently, you give the insect time
to retreat, the case will be held so closely to the leaf as
to rccjuire a much stronger effort to loosen it. As if
=" Forsyth on Fruit Trees, 4to edit. 371.

462 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

aware that, should the air get admission from below, find
thus render a vacuum impracticable, the strongest bul-
wark of its fortress would be destroyed, our little philo-
sopher carefully avoids gnawing a hole in the leaf, con-
tenting itself with the pasturage afforded by the paren-
chyma above the lower epidermis ; and when the produce
of this area is consumed, it gnaws asunder the cords of
its tent, and pitches it at a short distance as before.
Having attained its full growth, it assumes the pupa
state, and after a while issues out of its confinement a
small brown moth, with long hind legs, the Phalccna
Tinea serratella of Linne*.

Some larvae, which form their covering of pure silk,
are not content with a single coating, but actually enve-
lop themselves in another, open on one side and very
much resembling a cloak ; whence Reaunnir called them
" Teigncs ufourrcau a manteau." What is very striking
in the construction of tliis cloak, is, that the silk, instead
of being woven into one uniform close texture, is formed
into numerous transparent scales over-wrapping each
other, and altogether very much resembling the scales
of a fish**. These mantle-covered cases, one of which
I once had the pleasure of discovering, are inhabited
by the larva of a little moth apparently first described
by Dr. Zincken, genannt Sommer, who calls it Thiea
j)alliatella '^.

Various substances besides silk are fabricated into ha-

* Goeze Xatur. Menschcnlcben und Vorschtmg. Anderson's Rccrc-
atlnns, ii. 409. See above p. 16.

" Reauni. iii. 206. Platk XVII. Fig. 0,
•^ Gennur's Mag. fur Entomologic, i. 40.

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 463

bitations by other larvae, though usually joined together
either with silk or an analogous gummy material. Thus
Tinea Liclicnum forms of pieces of lichen a dwelling re-
sembling one of the turrited Helices^ many of which I
observed in June 1 8 1 2 on an oak in Barham. The lar-
vae of another Tinea, which also feeds upon lichens, in-
stead of employing these vegetables in forming its habi-
tation, composes it of grains of stone eroded from the
walls of buildings upon which its food is found, and con-
nected by a silken cement. These insects were the sub-
ject of a paper in the Memoirs of the French Academy *,
by M. de la Voye, who, from the circumstance of their
being found in great abundance on mouldering walls, at-
tributed to them the power of eating stone, and regarded
them as the authors of injuries proceeding solely from
the hand of time : for the insects themselves are so mi-
nute, and the coating of grains of stone composing their
cases is so trifling, that Reaumur observes they could
scarcely make any perceptible impression on a wall from
which they had procured materials for ages ''. — Another
lepidopterous larva, but of a much larger size and diffe-
rent genus, the case of which is preserved in the cabinet
of the President of the Linnean Society, who pointed it
out to me, employs the spines apparently of some spe-
cies of Mimosa, which are ranged side by side so as to
form a very elegant fluted cylinder. A similar arrange-
ment of pieces of small twigs is observable in the habita-
tion of the females "= of the larvae of a moth referred by

* X. 4")8. b Reaum. iii. 183.

*= The larv£e of the males intermix with tlie pieces of twigs, which
are less closely and regularly arranged, bits of dried leaves and other

464- HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

Von Scheven to Bomhyx veUita^ F. ; while Tinea Viciella
of the Wiener Verzeichniss covers itself with short por-
tions of the stems of grasses placed transversely, and
united by means of silk into a five- or six-sided case.
The habitation of a third larva of the same family, de-
scribed and figured by Reaumur {Psyche graminellaf
Ochsenh.), is composed of squarish pieces of the leaves
of grass fastened only at one end, and ovei*wrapping each
other like the tiles of a house; and that of another no-
ticed by the same author, of portions of the smallest
twigs of broom arranged on the same plan*. Indeed
the larvae of the whole of this tribe of moths, now sepa-
rated into a distinct genus {Psyche, Schrank, Ochsenh.,
Fumea, Ha worth), but which according to Germar needs
further subdivision, reside in cases or sacks°( whence they
are called by the Germans SacJdrager) composed of silk,
and fragments of grass, bark, &c.

The larvas of a small beetle {Clytra longimana) reside
in oviform cases apparently of a calcareous or earthy
substance, joined by a gummy cement and covered with
red hairs, the origin of which, Hiibner, who first disco-
vered them, could not account for : and from the obser-
vations of Amstein and the French translator of Fuessly's
Archives, it seems probable that the larvae of all the species
of Clytra, and according to Zschorn, at least of one spe-
cies of Cryptocephalus, (C duodecimpunctata, F.) differ-

light materials. See the excellent elucidation of the history of this
tribe, whose mode of generation is so singular, by Von Scheven, in
the Naturforscher Stk. xx. 61, &c. : also a valuable paper by Dr. Zinc-
ken, genannt Sommer, in Germar's Mag, fur Ent. i. 19—40.
» Reaum.iii. 148-9. T. 11. f. 10.11.

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 465

ing in this respect from all other known Coleoptera^ live
in moveable cases*.

Wax is the principal substance employed in the habi-
tations of the larvae before mentioned '', occasionally so
destructive to bee-hives. These insidious depredators,
which are mentioned by Aristotle *=, tying together, with
silk, grains of wax (which, and not honey, forms their
food) construct galleries of a considerable length, and
thus concealed from the sight, and protected from the
stings of the armed people whom they have attacked,
push their mines into the very heart of the fortress, and
pursue their robberies in perfect safety '^.

As many of the habitations which I have been describ-
ing, fit the body of the insects as close as a coat, they
might perhaps with more propriety be called clothes.
This is certainly the most appropriate designation of the
abodes of some species of Tineae (the clothes' moths),
which not only cover themselves with a coat, but employ
the very same material in its composition as we do in
ours, forming it of wool or hair curiously felted together.
Like us, they are born naked, but not like us helpless
at -that period, scarcely have they breathed before they
begin to clothe themselves ; thus contradicting Dr. Pa-
ley's assertion, that " the human animal is the only one
which is naked, and the only one which can clothe
itself ^ : " and wisely inattentive to change of fashion, tlie
same suit serves them from their birth to mature age.
The shape of their dress is adapted to that of their body

» Fuessly, Archiv. 53. /. 31. Germar's Mag. fur Ent. i. 136.
'' See above, p. 164, <" Aristot. Hist. Atiim. 1. viii. c. 27*

•^ Reaum. iil mem. 8. -■ 'Nai. Theol. 330.

VOL. I, 2 H

466 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

— a cylindrical case open at both ends. The stuff of
which it is composed is the manufacture of the larva of
the Tinea, which incorporates wool or hair artfully cut
from our clothes or furniture, with silk drawn from its
own mouth, into a warm and thick tissue : and as this
would not be soft enough for its tender skin, it also lines
the inside of its coat with a layer of pure silk. Since
this suit of clothes during the earliest age of the insect
accurately fits its body, you will readily conceive that it
will frequently require enlarging. This the little occu-
pant accomplishes as dexterously as any tailor. If the
case merely requires lengthening, the task is easy. All
that is needful is to add a new ring of hair or wool and
silk to each end. But to enlarge it in width is not so
simple an affair. Yet it sets to work precisely as we
should, slitting the case on the two opposite sides, and
then adroitly inserting between them two pieces of the
requisite size. It does not, however, cut open the case
from one end to the other at once : the sides would se-
parate too far asunder, and the insect be left naked. It
therefore first cuts each side about halfway down, and
then after having filled up the fissure proceeds to cut
the remaining half: so that, in fact, four enlargements
are made, and four separate pieces inserted. — The co-
lour of the habit is always the same as that of the stufl'
from which it is taken. Thus, if its original colour be
blue, and the insect previously to enlarging it be put
Upon red cloth, the circles at the end and two stripes
down the middle will be red. If placed alternately upon
cloths of different hues, its dress will be parti-coloured
like that of a Harlequin. — The injury occasioned to us

HABITATIOKS OF INSECTS. 467

by these insects is not confined to the quantity of materials
consumed in clothing and feeding themselves. In mov-
ing from place to place they seem to be as much in-
commoded by the long hairs which surround them, as we
are by walking amongst high grass; and accordingly,
marching scythe in hand, with their teeth they cut out a
smooth road, from time to time reposing themselves, and
anchoring their little case with small silken cables.

If, as I hope, you are induced to investigate the man-
ners of these insects, you have but to leave an old coat
for a few months undisturbed in a dark closet, and you
may be pretty certain of meeting with an abundant
colony.

Not merely wool or hair, but another substance analo-
gous to one employed in our dress, is adopted for their
clothing by other insects. The larva of a fly which lives
on the seeds of willows, makes itself a very beautiful case
of their cottony down, not only impervious to wet and
cold, but serving, if accidentally blown into the water,
which from the situation of these trees frequently happens,
as a buoyant little barge which is wafted safely to the
shore ^.

The habitations which we have hitherto been consider-
ing, are formed by larvae that live on land, but others
equally remarkable are constructed by aquatic species,
the larvae of the various Phryganets, a tribe of four-winged
insects which an ordinary observer would call moths, but
which are even of a distinct order'', not having their wings
covered by the scales which adorn the lepidopterous race.

" Reaum. iii. 130. ^ See Kifby in Linn. Trans, xi. 88,

where it is proposed to call this order Trichoptera,

2 H 2

468 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

If you are desirous of examining the insects to which I
am alluding, you have only to place yourself by the side
of a clear and shallow pool of water, and you cannot fail
to observe at the bottom little oblong moving masses re-
sembling pieces of straw, wood, or even stone. These
are the larvae in question, well known to fishermen by the
title of Caddis-tvoi-ms, and which, if 3'ou take them out
of the water, you will observe to inhabit cases of a very
singular conformation. Of the larva itself, which some-
what resembles the caterpillars of many Lepidoptera, no-
thing is to be seen but the head and six legs by means of
which it moves itself in the water, and drags after it the
case in which the rest of the body is inclosed, and into
which on any alarm it wholly retires. The construction
of these habitations is very various. Some select four or
five pieces of the leaves of grass, which they glue toge-
ther into a shapely polygonal case ; others employ portions
of the stems of rushes, placed side by side so as to form an
elegant fluted cylinder ; some arrange round them pieces
of leaves like a spirally-rolled ribband ='; others inclose
themselves in a mass of the leaves of any aquatic plants
united w^ithout regularity ; and others again form their
abode of minute pieces 01 wood either fresh or decayed ''.
One, like the Sabelke'^, forms a horn-shaped case com-
posed of grains of sand, so equal in size, and so nicely and
regularly gunmied together, the sides throughout being
of the thickness of one grain only, that the first time I
viewed it I could scarcely persuade myself it could be the
work of an insect. The case of P. biniaculatay which is

» Plate XVII. Fig. 10. ^ Reaum, iii. 156-^.

* Sowerbv's iVa^ MitcelL No. ix. t. 51.

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. i6f)

less artificially construct6d of a mixture of mud and sand,
is pyriform, and has its end curiously stopped by a plate
formed of grains of sand, with a central aperture'. Other
species construct houses which may be called alive, form-
ing them of the shells of various aquatic snails of different
kinds and sizes even while inhabited, all of which are im-
moveably fixed to it, and dragged about at its pleasure —
a covering as singular as if a savage, instead of clothing
himself with squirrels' skins, should sew together into a
coat the animals themselves. However various may be
the form of the case externally, within it is usually cylin-
drical and lined with silk ; and though seldom apparently
wider than just to admit the body of the insect, some
species have the power of turning round in it, and of put-
ting out their head at either end **. Some larvae constantly
make their cases of the same materials; others employ in-
differently any that are at hand ; and the new ones which
they construct as they increase in size (for they have not
the faculty, like the larva of the moth, of enlarging them)
have often an appearance quite dissimilar to that of the
old. Even those that are most careless about the nature
of the materials of their house, are solicitously attentive to
one circumstance respecting them, namely, their specific
gravity. Not having the power of swimming, but only of
walking at the bottom of the water by aid of the six legs
attached to the fore part of the body which is usually pro-
truded out of the case, and the insect itself being heavier
than water, it is of great importance that its house should
be of a specific gravity so nearly that of the element in

* Dc Gecr, ii. 5(ji. *> Ibid.

470 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

which it resides, as while walking neither to incommode
it by its weight, nor by too great buoyancy ; and it is as
essential that it should be so equally ballasted in every
part as to be readily moveable in any position. Under
these circumstances our Caddis-worms evince their pro-
ficiency in hydrostatics, selecting the most suitable sub-
stances ; and, if the cell be too heavy, glueing to it a bit
of leaf or straw; or, if too light, a shell or piece of gravel.
It is from this necessity of regulating the specific gravity,
that to the cases formed with the greatest regularity we
often see attached a seemingly superfluous piece of wood,
leaf, or the like.

A larva of one of the aquatic Tipulidce lives in cases
somewhat similar to those of some Phryganece. Several
of these of a fusiform shape and brown colour, composed
partly of silk and partly perhaps of fragments of leaves,
and inhabited by a red larva apparently of a Chironomtis,
were found by Reaumur upon de&d leaves in a pool of
water in the Bois de Boulogne ^.

In concluding this head I may observe, that here might
have been described the various abodes which solitary
larvae prepare for themselves previously to assuming the
pupa, and intended for their protection in that defence-
less stage of existence ; but as I shall have occasion again
to refer to them in speaking of the larva state of insects,
I shall defer their description to that letter, to which they
more strictly belong.

From the next division of the habitations of insects —
those formed by solitary perfect insects for their own ac-

' Reaum. iii. ] 79.

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 471

commodation — I shall select for description only two,
both the work of spiders, and alluded to in a former let-
ter, which indeed, with the exception of the inartificial
retreats made by the AchetcE, Cicindelce, and perhaps a
few others, are the only ones properly belonging to it.

The habitation of one of these [My gale ccemefitariaf
Latr., A^^anea Sauvagesii, Dorthes,) is subterraneous,
not a mere shallow cavity, but a tube or gallery upwards
of two feet in length and half an inch broad. This tun-
nel, so vast compared with the size of the insect, it digs
by means of its strong jaws in a steep bank of bare clay,
so that the rain may readily run off without penetrating
to its dwelling. Its next operation is to line the whole
from top to bottom with a web of fine silk, which serves
the double purpose of preventing the earth that composes
the walls from falling in, and, by its connexion with tlie
door of the orifice, of giving information to the spider of
what is passing above. You doubtless suppose that in
saying door I am speaking metaphorically. It could
never enter into your conception that any animal, much
less an insect, could construct any thing really deserving
of that name — any thing like our doors, turning upon a
hinge, and accurately fitted to the frame of the opening
which it is intended to close. Yet such a door, incre-
dible as it may seem, is actually framed by this spider.
It does not indeed, like us, compose it of wood, but of
several coats of dried earth fastened to each other with
silk. When finished, its outline is as perfectly circular
as if traced with compasses ; the inferior surface is con-
vex and smooth, the superior flat and rough, and so like
the adjoining earth as not to be distinguishable from it.

^TS HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

This door the ingenious artist fixes to the entrance of
her gallery by a hinge of silk, which plays with the
greatest freedom, and allows it to be opened and shut
with ease ; and as if acquainted with the laws of gravity,
she invariably fixes the hinge at the highest side of the
opening, so that the door when pushed up shuts again
by its own weight. She has not less sagaciously left a
little edge or groove just within the entrance, upon which
the door closes, and to which it fits with such precision,
that it seems to make but one surface with it. Such is
the astonishing structure of this little animal's abode j
nor is its defence of its subterraneous cavern less sur-
prising. If an observer adroitly insinuates the point of
a pin under the edge of the door, and elevates it a little,
he immediately perceives a very strong resistance. —
What is its cause ? — The spider, warned by the vibra-
tions of the threads which extend from the door to the
bottom of her gallery, runs with all speed to the door,
fastens its legs to it on one side, and on the other to the
walls, and, turning upon its back, pulls with all its might.
Thus the door is alternately shut or opened, as the exer-
tions of the observer or of the spider prevail. It is easy
to guess which will in the end conquer ; and the spider,
when it finds all resistance ineffectual, betakes itself to
flight, and retreats. If, to make a further experiment,
the observer fastens down the door so that it cannot be
forced open, the next morning he will find a new en-
trance, with a new door formed at a small distance ; or,
if he take the door entirely away, another will be con-
structed in less than twelve hours.

The habitation thus singularly formed and defended

HABITATIONS Ol INSECTf*. 473

is not at all used as a snare, but merely as a safe abode
for the spider, which hunts its prey at night only ; and,
when caught, de\'ours it in security at the bottom of its
den, which is generally strewed with the remains of co-
leopterous insects^. — From some curious observations
of M. Dorthes on this species in the second volume of
the Linncan Transactions, it appears that both the male
and female spider and as many as thirty young ones oc-
casionally inhabit one of these galleries. — Aranea Sauva-
gcsii of Rossi, which is a distinct species found in Cor-
sica, forn)s a similar habitation''.

The galleries just described are the work of an Eu-
ropean species not uncommon in the south of France ;
but similar ones are fabricated by Ara?iea vaiaioriay an
inhabitant of the West India islands, as well as by many
other tropical species. I have seen one of these, which
had been dug out of the earth, in the cabinet of Thomas
Hall, Esq. F. L. S., that was nearly a foot in length, and
above an inch in diameter, forming a cylindrical bag of
dark-coloured silk, closed at the bottom, and accurately
fitted at the top by a door or lid.

The habitation of Aranea aquatica, the other spider to
which I alluded, is chiefly remarkable for the element in
which it is constructed and the materials that compose
it. It is built in the midst of water, and formed, in fact,
of air ! Spiders are usually terrestrial, but this is aqua-
tic, or rather amphibious ; for though she resides in the
midst of water, in which she swims with great celerity,
sometimes on her belly but more frequently on her back,

* Sauvages Hist, del' Acad, des Sc, de Paris, 1758, p. 26.
*■ Latr. Hist. Nat. vii. 165.

474; HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

and is an admirable diver, she not unfrequently hunts on
shore, and, having caught her prey, plunges with it to the
bottom of the water. Here it is she forms her singular
and unique abode. She would evidently have but a very
uncomfortable time were she constantly wet, but this she
is sagacious enough to avoid ; and by availing herself of
some well-known philosophical principles, she constructs
for herself an apartment in which, like the mermaids and
sea-nymphs of fable, she resides in comfort and security.
The following is her process. First she spins loose
threads in various directions attached to the leaves of
aquatic plants, which may be called the frame-work of
her chamber, and over them she spreads a transparent
varnish resembling liquid glass, which issues from the
middle of her spinners, and which is so elastic that it is
capable of great expansion and contraction; and if a
hole be made in it, it immediately closes again. Next
she spreads over her belly a pellicle of the same mate-
rial, and ascends to the surface. The precise mode in
which she transfers a bubble of air beneath this pellicle
is not accurately known ; but from an observation made
by the ingenious author of the little work from which
his account is abstracted, he concludes that she draws
the air into her body by the anus, which she presents to
the surface of the pool, and then pumps it out from an
opening at the base of the belly between the pellicle and
that part of the body, the hairs of which keep it extended.
Clothed with this aerial mantle, which to the spectator
seems formed of resplendent quicksilver, she plunges to
the bottom, and, with as much dexterity as a chemist
transfers gas with a gas-holder, introduces her bubble of

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 475

air beneath the roof prepared for its reception. This
manoeuvre she repeats ten or twelve times, until at length
in about a quarter of an hour she has transported as
much air as suffices to expand her apartment to its in-
tended extent, and now finds herself in possession of a
little aerial edifice, I had almost said an enchanted pa-
lace, aifording her a commodious and dry retreat in the
very midst of the water. Here she reposes unmoved by
the storms that agitate the surface of the pool, and de-
vours her prey at ease and in safety. Both sexes form
these lodgings. At a particular season of the year the
male quits his apartment, approaches that of the female,
enters it, and enlarging it by the bubble of air that he
carries with him, it becomes a common abode for the
happy pair*. — The spider which forms these singular
habitations is one of the largest European species, and
in some countries not uncommon in stagnant pools.

I am, &c.

* Mi moire pour servir a commencer V Histoire dea Araignees Aqua-
tiqiies, 12mo.

LETTER XV.

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS
CONTINUED.

1 HE habitations of insects which I shall not next pro-
ceed to describe, are those formed by the united labour
of several individuals.

The societies which thus combine their opei'ations may
be divided mto two kinds : 1st, those of which the object
is simply the conservation of the individuals composing
them ; and 2dly, those whose object is also the nurture
and education of their j'oung. To the last head belong
bees, wasps, &c. : to the former the larvas of some spe-
cies of moths, whose labours being the most simple I
shall first describe.

You cannot fail to have observed in gardens the fruit-
trees disfigured, as you would probably think them, with
what at first view seem very strong and thick spiders*
webs. If you have bestowed upon these webs the slight-
est attention, you must have likewise remarked that they
differ very materially in their construction from those
spun by spiders, inclosing on every side an angular
space, and being besides filled with caterpillars. These
are the larvge of Bomhyx chrysorrhcza^ and the web which

HABITATlOyS OF INSECTS. 477

contains them is spun ))y their united labour lor the pro-
tection of the common society. As soon as liie cluster of
eggs deposited by the parent moth is hatched, the young-
caterpillars, to the number oi three or four hundred,
commence their operations. At first they content them-
selves by forming a sort of hammock of the single leaf
upon which they find themselves assembled, covering it
with a roof composed of a number of silken threads drawn
from one edge to the other ; and under one or more of
these temporary habitations they reside for a few days,
until they are become large and strong enough to under-
take a more solid and spacious building sufficient to con-
tain the whole society. In constructing this new habita-
tion, they spin a close silken web round the end of two or
three adjoining twigs and the leaves attached to them, so
as to include the recjuisite space. They are not curious
in giving any particular form to the edifice: sometimes
it is flat, often roundish, but always more or less angular.
The interior is divided by i)artitions of silk into several
irregular apartments, to each of which there is purposely
left an appropriate door. Within these the caterpillars
I'etire at night, or in rainy weather, quitting the nest on
fine days, and dispersing themselves over the neighbour-
ing leaves, upon which they feed. Here too they rejiose
during the critical period of the change of their skins.
On the approach of winter the whole community shut
themselves up in the nest, which, by the addition of re-
peated layers of silk, has at this time become so thick and
strong as to be impervious to the wind and rain. They
remain in a state of torpidity during the cold months,
but towards tlie begiiming of April are awakened to ac-

478 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

tivity by the genial breath of spring, and begin to feed
with greediness upon the young leaves that surround their
habitation, which, as they soon greatly increase in size,
they find it necessary to enlarge. One might fear that
a structure formed of such materials would at this period
be sadly damaged by the growth of the young shoots
and leaves of the twigs which it incloses; but the inha-
bitants, as if to guard against such an accident, have
gnawed off all the buds within their dwelling, and thus
secured themselves from this inconvenience*.

The nest of the larvae of another species of moth, the
Bomhyx processioned, unfortunately not a native of this
country, to which on account of their singular manners,
that will be detailed to you in a subsequent letter, Reau-
mur has given the title of processionary caterpillars, is
somewhat different in its construction from that just de-
scribed, though formed of the same material. As the
caterpillars which fabricate it feed upon the leaves of
the oak, it is always found upon this tree, attached not
to the branches but the trunk, sometimes at a consi-
derable height from the ground. In shape it resembles
an irregular knob or protuberance, and the silk which
composes it being of a gray colour, at a distance it would
he taken for a mass of lichens. Sometimes this nest is
upwards of eighteen inches long, and six broad, rising in
the middle about four inches from the surface of the tree.
Between the trunk and the silken covering, a single hole
is left which serves for the entrance and exit of the in-
habitants. These differ in their manners from those last
mentioned. While very young they have no fixed ha-
' llcaum. ii,-li^8.

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 479

bitation, contenting themselves with a succession of dit-
ferent temporary camps until they have attained two-
thirds of their growth. Then it is they unite their la-
bours in spinning the nest just described ; and in this
they continue to reside in harmony until they become per-
fect insects, assuming in it even the state of chrysalis*.

Habitations similar, as to their general structure, to
the above, thouoh diflerino- in several minute circum-
stances, are formed by the larvce of several other moths,
as of Bombyx phceorrhea of Curtis, B. neustria^ &c. as
well as those of Papilio lo, P. Cinxia, and some other
butterflies : and even of some Tenthredinidce, which, how-
ever, have each a separate silken covering. But as it
would be tedious to describe these particularly, I pass on
to the habitations formed by insects in their perfect state,
which have in view the education of their young as well
as self-pres6rvation, describing in succession those of
a7its, bees, UYisps, and termites.

Of these the most simple in their structure are tlie
nests of different kinds of ants, many of which externally
present the appearance of hillocks more or less conica3,
formed of earth or other substances.

The nest of the large red ants [F. mfa, L.) which are
common in woods, at the first aspect seems a very confused
mass. Extei'iorly it is a conical mount coniposed of pieces
of straw, fragments of wood, little stones, leaves, grain ;
in short, of any portable materials within their reacii.
But however rude its outward appearance, and the articles
of which it consists, interiorly it presents an arrange-
» Reaum. ii. 1 79'

480 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

ment admirably calculated at once for a protection against
the excessive heat of the sun, and yet to retain a due de-
gree of genial warmth. It is wholly composed of nu-
merous small apartments of different sizes, communicat-
ing with each other by means of sralleries and arranged
in separate stories, some very deep in the earth, others
a considerable height above it : the former for the re-
ception of the young in cold weather and at night, the
latter adapted to their use in the day time. In forming
these, the ants mix the earth excavated from the bottom
of the nest with the other materials of which the mount
consists, and thus give solidity to the whole. Besides
the avenues which join the apartments together, other
galleries varying in dimensions communicate with the
outside of the nest at the top of the mount. These open
doors would seem ill calculated for precluding the ad-
mission of wet or of noctui'nal enemies : but the ants alter
their dimensions continually according to circumstances;
and they wholly close them at night, when all gradually
retire to the interior, and a few sentinels only are left to
guard the gates. On rainy days, too, they keep them
shut, and when the sky is cloudy open them partiall}'^.

The habitations of these ants are much larger than
those of any other species in this country', and sometimes
as big as a small haycock; but they are mere molehills
when compared with the enormous mounds which other
species apparently of the same family, but much larger,
construct in warmer climates. Malouet states, that in
the forests of Guiana he once saw ant-hills which, though
his companion would not suffer him to approach nearer
* Huber, Hecltcriltrs sur lei Mams des Fourniiji, p. 21-j?9,

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 481

than forty paces for tear of his being devoured, seemed
to him to be fifteen or twenty feet high, and tliirty or
forty in diameter at the base, assuming the form of a py-
ramid, truncated at one-third of its height^ : and Sted-
man, when in Surinam, once passed ant-hills six feet
high, and at least one hundred feet in circumference^.

The nest of Formica brunnea, Latr. is composed wholly
of earth, and consists of a great number of stories, some-
times not fewer than forty, twenty below the level of the
soil, and as many above, which last, following the slope
of the ant-hill, are concentric. Each story, separately
examined, exhibits cavities in the shape of saloons, nar-
rower apartments, and long galleries which preserve the
communication between both. The arched roofs of the
most spacious rooms are supported by very thin walls,
or occasionally by small pillars and true buttresses ; some
having only one entrance from above, others a second
communicating with the lower story. The main galle-
ries, of which in some places several meet in one large
saloon, communicate with other subterranean passages,
which are often carried to the distance of several feet

from the hill. — These insects work chiefly after sunset.

In building their nest they employ soft clay only, scraped
from its bottom when sufficiently moistened by a shower,
which, far from injuring, consolidates and strengthens
their architecture. Different labourers convey small
masses of this ductile material between their mandibles,
and With the same instruments they spread and mould
It to their will, the antennae accompanying every move-
ment. They render all firm by pressing the surface

Huber, Recherches sur les Mccurs des Foiirbiis, p. 168.
•> Stedman's Surinam, i. IC9.
VOL. r. 2 1

482 HABITATIONS OF INSKCTS.

lightly with their fore feet; and however luiineroas tiie
masses of clay composing these walls, and though con-
nected by no glutinous material, they appear when finished
one single layer well united, consolidated, and smoothed.
Having traced the plan of their structure, by placing
here and there the foundations of the pillars and parti-
tion-walls, they add successively new portions ; and when
the walls of a gallery or apartment which are half a line
thick are elevated about half an inch in height, they join
them by springing a flattish arch or roof from one side
to the other. Nothing can be a more interesting spec-
tacle than one of these cities while building. In one
place vertical walls form the outline, which communicate
with different corridors by openings made in the mason-
ry ; in another we see a true saloon whose vaults are
supported by numerous pillars ; and further on are the
cross ways or squares where several streets meet, and
whose roofs, though often more than two inches across,
the ants are under no difficulty in constructing, begin-
ning the sides of the arch in the angle formed by two
walls, and extending them by successive layers of clay
till they meet ; while crowds of masons arrive from all
parts with their particle of mortar, and work with a re-
gularity, harmony, and activity, which can never enough
be admired. So assiduous are they in their operations,
that they will complete a story with all its saloons, vault-
ed roofs, partitions and galleries, in seven or eight hours.
If they begin a story, and for want of moisture are un-
able to finish it, they pull down again all the crumbling
apartments that are not covered in^.

» Huber, Recherches, &c. 30-40.

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 485

Another species of ants [F./usca^ L.) are also masons.
When they wish to heighten their habitations, they be-
gin by covering the top with a thick layer of clay which
they transport from the interior. In this layer they trace
out the plan of the new story, first hollowing out little
cavities of almost equal depth at different distances from
each other, and of a size adapted to their purposes.
The elevations of earth left between them serve for bases
to the interior walls, which, when they have removed all
the loose earth from the floors of the apartments, and re-
duced the foundations to a due thickness, they heighten,
and lastly cover all in. M. Huber saw a single working
ant make and cover in a gallery which was two or three
inches long, and of which the interior was rendered per-
fectly concave, without assistance^.

The societies oi F.fuliginosa, Latr. make their habi-
tations in the trunks of old oaks or willow-trees, gnaw-
ing the wood into numberless stories more or less hori-
zontal, the ceilings and floors of which are about five or
six lines asunder, black, and as thin as card, sometimes
supported by vertical partitions, forming an infinity of
apartments which communicate by small apertures ; at
others by small light cylindrical pillars furnished with a
base and capital which are arranged in colonnades, leav-
ing a communication perfectly free throughout the whole
extent of the story ^.

Two other tribes of carpenter ants [F. a^tJiiops and
F. Jtaxm, Latr.) use sawdust in forming their buildings.
The former applies this material only to the building of

» lluber, Recherches, &c. 45. *' Ibid. 53.

ii I 2

4.84- HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

walls and stopping up chinks : the latter composes whole
stages or stories of it made into a sort of papier mdche^
with earth and spiders' web ^.

Some ants form their nests of the leaves of trees. One
of these was observed by Su' Joseph Banks in New
South Wales, which was formed by glueing together se-
veral leaves as large as a hand. To keep these leaves
in a proper position, thousands of ants united their
strength, and if driven away, the leaves spring back with
great violence''.

The most profound philosopher, equally with the
most incurious of mortals, is struck with astonishment
on inspectmg the interior of a hec-hive. He beholds a
city in miniature. He sees this city divided into regular
streets, these streets composed of houses constructed on
the most exact geometrical principles and the most sym-
metrical plan, some serving for store-houses for food,
others for the habitations of the citizens, and a few, much
more extensive than the rest, destined for the palaces of
the sovereign. He perceives that the substance of which
the whole city is built, is one which man, with all his
skill, is unable to fabricate ; and that the edifices in which
it is employed are such, as the most expert artist would
find himself incompetent to erect. And the whole is the
work of a society of insects ! " Qiiel abhne (he exclaims
with Bonnet) aux yeux du sage qiHune ruche (TAbeiUes !
Quelle sagesse prqfonde se cache dans cet abhne I Quel
philosophe osera le fonder ! " Nor have its mysteries yet

* Huber, Recherches, &c. 61.

^ Hawkesworth's Cook^s Foj/ages, iii. 223.

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 485

been fathomed. Philosophers have in all ages devoted
their lives to the subject ; from Aristomachus of Soli in
Cilicia, who, we are told by Pliny, for fifty-eight years
attended solely to bees, and Philiscus the Thracian, who
spent his whole time in forests investigating their man-
ners, to Swammerdam, Reaumur, Hunter, and Huber
of modern times. Still the construction of the combs of
a bee-hive is a miracle which overwhelms our faculties.

You are probably aware that the hives with which we
provide bees are not essential to their labours, and
that they can equally form their city in the hollow of a
tree or any other cavity. In whatever situation it is
placed, the general plan which they follow is the same.
You have seen a honey-comb, and must have observed
that it is a flattish cake, composed of a vast number of
cells, for the most part hexagonal, regularly applied to
each other's sides, and arranged in two strata or layers
placed end to end. The interior of a bee-hive consists
of several of these combs fixed to its upper part and sides,
arranged vei-tically at a small distance from each other,
so that the cells composing them are placed in a hori-
zontal position, and have their openings in opposite di-
rections— not the best position one would have thought
for retaining a fluid like honey, yet the bees find no in-
convenience on this score. The distance of the combs
from each other is about half an inch, that is, sufficient
to allow two bees busied upon the opposite cells to pass
each other with facility. Besides these vacancies, which
form the high roads of their community, the combs ere
here and there pierced with holes which serve as posterns

486 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

for easy communication from one to the other without
losing time by going round.

The arrangement of the combs is well adapted for
its purpose, but it is the constiniction of the cells which
is most admirable and astonishing. As these are formed
of wax, a substance secreted by the bees in no great
abimdance, it is important that as little as possible of
such a precious material should be consumed. Bees,
therefore, in the formation of their cells have to solve
a problem which would puzzle some geometers, namely,
a quantity of wax being given, to form of it similar and
equal cells of a determinate capacity, but of the largest
size in proportion to the quantity of matter employed,
and disposed in such a manner as to occupy in the hive
the least possible space. Every part of this problem is
practically solved by bees. If their cells had been cy-
lindrical, which form seems best adapted to the shape
of a bee, they could not have been applied to each
other without leaving numberless superfluous vacuities.
If the cells were made square or triangular, this last
objection, indeed, would be removed ; but besides that
a greater quantity of wax would have been required,
the shape would have been inconvenient to a cylin-
drical-bodied animal. All these difficulties are obviated
by the adoption of hexagonal cells, which are admira-
bly fitted to the form of the insect, at the same time
that their sides apply to each other without the small-
est vacant intervals. — Another important saving in ma-
terials is gained by making a common base serve for
two strata of cells. Much more wax as w^ell as room

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 487

would have been required, had the combs consisted of
a single stratum only. But this is not all. The base
of each cell is not an exact plane, but is usually com-
posed of three rhomboidal or lozenge-shaped pieces,
placed so as to form a pyramidal concavity. From this
form it follows that the base of a cell on one side or
stratum of the comb is composed of portions of the bases
of three cells on the other. You will inquire, Where
is the advantage of this arrangement ? First, a greater
degree of strength ; and secondly, precisely the same
as results from the hexagonal sides — a greater capacity
with less expenditure of wax. Not only has this been
indisputably ascertained, but that the angles of the base
of the cell are exactly those which require the smallest
quantity of wax. It is obvious that these angles might
vary infinitely ; but by a very accurate admeasurement
Maraldi found, that the great angles were in general
109° 28', the smaller ones 70° 32'. Reaumur ingeni-
ously suspecting that the object of choosing these an-
gles from amongst so many was to spare wax, proposed
to M. Koenig, a skilful geometrician, who was ignorant
of Maraldi's experiments, to determine by calculations
what ought to be the angle of a hexagonal cell, with
a pyramidal bottom formed of three similar and equal
rhomboid plates, so that the least matter possible might
enter into its construction. For the solution of this pro-
blem the geometrician had recourse to the infinitesimal
calculus, and found that the great angles of the rhombs
should be 109° 26', and of the small angles 70° 34' S

' Rcaum, v. 390,

4-88 HABITATIONS Ol' INSECTS.

What a surprising agreement between the sokition of
the problem and the actual admeasurement^ !

Besides the saving of wax effected by the form of the
cells, the bees adopt another economical plan suited to
the same end. They compose the bottoms and sides of
wax of very great tenuity, not thicker than a sheet of
writing-paper. But as walls of this thinness at the en-
trance would be perpetually injured by the ingress and
egress of the workers, they prudently make the margin
at the opening of each cell three or four times thicker
than the walls. Dr. Barclay has recently discovered
that though of such excessive tenuity, the sides and bot-
tom of each cell are actually douhle^ or, in other words,
that each cell is a distinct, separate, and in some mea-
sure an independent structure, agglutinated only to the
neighbouring cells, and that when the agglutinating sub-

=* Father Boscovich observes, that all the angles that form the
planes which compose the cell are equal, i. e. 120° : and he supposes
that this equality of inclmation facilitates much the construction of
the cell, which may be a motive for preferring it, as well as economy.
He shows that the bees do not economize the wax necessary for a flat
bottom in the construction of every cell, near so much as MM. Koe-
nig and Reaumui" thought.

MacLaurin says, that the difference of a cell with a pyramidal from
one with a flat bottom, in which is comprised the economy of the
bees, is equal to the fourth part of six triangles, which it would be
necessary to add to the trapeziums, the faces of the cell, in order to
make them right angles.

M. L'Huillier, professor of Geneva, values the economy of the bees
at A of the whole expense ; and he shows that it might have been
one-fifth if the bees had no other circumstances to attend to ; but
he concludes, that if it is not very sensible in every cell, it may be
considerable in the whole of a comb, on account of the mutual set-
ting of the two opposite orders of cells. Huber, Konvelles Observa-
tions, &c. ii. 34.

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 489

stance is destroyed, each cell may be entirely separated
IVom the rest^.

You must not imamne that all the cells of a hive are
of precisely similar dimensions. As the society consists
of three orders of insects differing in size, the cells which
are to contain the larvae of each proportion ably differ,
those built for the males being considerably larger than
those which are intended for the workers. The abode
of the larvae of the queen bee differs still more. It is
not only much larger than any of the rest, but of a quite
different form, being shaped like a pear or Florence
flask, and composed of a material much coarser than
common wax, of which above one hundred times as
much is used in its construction as of pure wax in that
of a common cell. The situation, too, of these cells (for
there are generally three or four, and sometimes many
more, even up to thirty or forty, in each hive) is very
different from that of the common cells. Instead of
being in a horizontal they are placed in a vertical direc-
tion, with the moutli downwards, and are usually fixed
to the lower edge of the combs, from which they irre-
gularly project like stalactites from the roof of a cavern.
— The cells destined for the reception of honey and
pollen, differ from tliose which the larvae of the males
and workers inhabit, only, by being deeper, and thus
more capacious ; in fact, the very same cells are succes-
sively applied to both purposes. When the honey is
collected in great abundance, and there is not time to

^ Memoirs of the Wcrneiian Society, ii. 259. This however has
been denied, and seems inconsistent with the account given by Hu-
ber hereafter detailed.

490 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

construct fresh cells, the bees lengthen the honey cells
by adding a rim to them.

You will be anxious to learn the process which these
inirenious artificers follow in constructing their habita-
tions : and on this head I am happy that the recent pub-
lication of a new edition of the celebrated Huber's New
Observations on Bees, in which this subject is for the first
time elucidated, will enable me to gratify your curiosity.

But in the first place you must be told of an important
and unlooked-for discovery of this unrivalled detector of
the hidden mysteries of nature — that the workers or neu-
ters, as they are called, of a hive, consist of two descrip-
tions of individuals, one of which he calls abeilles nour-
rices or petites abeilles, the other abeilles cirieres. — The
former, or nurse-bees, are smaller than the latter ; their
stomach is not capable of such distention ; and their
office is to build the combs and cells after the foundation
has been laid by the cirieres ; to collect honey ; and to
feed the larvae. The abeilles cirieres are the makers of
wax, which substance Huber has now indisputably as-
certained to be secreted, as John Hunter long ago sus-
pected, beneath the ventral segments, fi'om between wliich
it is taken by the bees when wanted, in the form of thin
scales. The apparatus in which the wax is secreted
consists of four pair of membranous bags or 'wax-pockets
situated at the base of each intermediate segment, one on
each side, which can only be seen by pressing the abdo-
men so as to lengthen it, being usually concealed by the
over-lapping of the preceding segments. It should be
observed that this discovery was nearly made by our
countryman Thorley, who in his Female Monarch/ {17 4:4.)

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 191

says that he has taken bees with six pieces ol' wax within
the plaits of the abdomen, three on each side. In these
pockets the wax is secreted by some unknown process
from the food taken into the stomach, which in the wax-
making bees is much larger than in the nurse-bees, and
afterwards transpires through the membrane of the wax-
pocket in thin laminae. The nurse-bees, however, do
secrete wax, but in very small quantities. — When wax
is not wanted in the hive, the wax-makers disgorge their
honey into the cells.

The process of building the combs in a bee-hive, as
observed by Huber, is as follows :

The wax-makers having taken a due portion of honey
or sugar, from either of which wax can be elaborated,
suspend themselves to each other, the claws of the fore-
legs of the lowermost being attached to those of the hind
pair of the uppermost, and form themselves into a clus-
ter, the exterior layer of which looks like a kind of cur-
tain. This cluster consists of a series of festoons or
garlands, which cross each other in all directions, and
in which most of the bees turn their back upon the ob-
server: the curtain has no other motion than what it
receives from the interior layers, the fluctuations of
which are communicated to it. — All this time the nurse-
bees preserve their wonted activity and pursue their usual
employments. — The wax-makers remain inmioveable for
about twenty-four hours, during which period the forma-
tion of wax takes place, and thin laminae of this material
may be generally perceived under their abdomen. One
of these bees is now seen to detach itself from one of the
central garlands of the cluster, to make a way amongst

492 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

its companions to tlie middle of the vault or top of the
hive, and by turning itself round to form a kind of void,
it which it can move itself freely. It then suspends itself
to the centre of the space which it has cleared, the dia-
meter of which is about an inch. It next seizes one of
the laminae of wax with a pincer formed by the posterior
metatarsus and tibia ^, and drawing it from beneath the
abdominal segment, one of the anterior legs takes it with
its claws and carries it to the mouth. This leg holds
the lamina with its claws vertically, the tongue rolled up
serving for a support, and by elevating or depressing it
at will, causes the whole of its circumference to be ex-'
posed to the action of the mandibles, so that the margin
is soon gnawed into pieces, which drop as they are de-
tached into the double cavity, bordered with hairs, of the
mandibles. These fragments, pressed by others newly
separated, fall on one side of the mouth, and issue from
it in the form of a very narrow ribband. They are then
presented to the tongue, which impregnates them with a
frothy liquor like a boiiillie. During this operation the
tongue assumes all sorts of forms : sometimes it is flat-
tened like a spatula ; then like a trowel, which applies
itself to the ribband of wax ; at other times it resembles
a pencil terminating in a point. After having moistened
the whole of the ribband, the tongue pushes it so as to
make it re-enter the mandibles, but in an opposite di-
rection, where it is worked up anew. The liquor mixed
with the wax communicates to it a whiteness and opacity
which it had not before ; and the object of this mixture
of bouillie, which did not escape the observation of Reau-
» Vide Mnn. Ap. Aug, t. 13. * * e. 1. neut. fig. .10.

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 493

mur^, is doubtless to give it that ductility and tenacity,
which it possesses in its perfect state.

The foundress-bee, a name which this first beginner
of a comb deserves, next applies these prepared parcels
of wax against the vault of the hive, disposing them with
the point of her mandibles in the direction which she
wishes them to take : and she continues these manoeuvres
until she has employed the whole lamina that she had
separated from her bodj^, when she takes a second, pro-
ceeding in the same manner. She gives herself no care
to compress the molecules of wax which she has heaped
together ; she is satisfied if they adhere to each other.
At length she leaves her work, and is lost in the crowd
of her companions. Another succeeds, and resumes the
employment ; then a third ; all follow the same plan of
placing their little masses ; and if any by chance gives
them a contrary direction, another coming removes them
to their proper place. Tlie result of all these operations
is a mass or little wall of wax with uneven surfaces, five
or six lines long, two lines high, and half a line thick,
which descends perpendicularly below the vault of the
hive. In this first work is no angle nor any trace of the
figure of the cells. It is a simple partition in a right
line without any inflection.

The wax-makers having thus laid the foundation of a
comb, are succeeded by the nurse-bees, which are alone
competent to model and perfect the work. The former
are the labourers, who convey the stone and mortar ; the
latter the masons, who work them up into the form which
the intended structure requires. One of the nurse-bees
* Reaiim. v. 4S4.

494 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

now places itself horizontally on the vault oi" the hive, its
head corresponding to the centre of the mass or wall
which the wax-makers have left, and which is to form
the partition of the comb into two opposite assemblages
of cells ; and with its mandibles, rapidly moving its head,
it moulds in that side of the wall a cavity which is to form
the base of one of the cells to the diameter of which it is
equal. When it has worked some minutes it departs,
and another takes its place, deepening the ca\'ity, height-
ening its lateral margins by heaping up the wax to right
and left by means of its teeth and fore-feet, and giving
them a more upright form. More than twenty bees
successively employ themselves in this work. When
arrived at a certain point, other bees begin on the yet
untouched and opposite side of the mass ; and com-
mencing the bottom of ttvo cells, are in turn relieved by
others. Wliile still engaged in this labour, the wax-
makers return and add to the mass, augmenting its ex-
tent every way, the nurse-bees again continuing their
operations. — After having worked the bottoms of the
cells of the first row into their proper forms, they polish
them and give them their finish, while others begin the
outline of a new series.

The cells themselves, or prisms which result from the
re-union and meeting of the sides, are next constructed.
These are engrafted on the borders of the cavities hoi-
lowed in the mass. The bees begin them by making
the contour of the bottoms, Avhich at first is unequal, of
equal height : thus all the margins of the cells offer an
uniformly level surface from their first origin, and until
they have acquired their proper length. The sides are

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 49.5

heightened in an order analogous to that which the in-
sects follow in finishing the bottoms of the cells ; and the
length of these tubes is so perfectly proportioned that
there is no observable inequality between them. — It is
to be remarked, that though the general form of the
cells is hexagonal, that of those first begun is penta-
gonal, the side next the top of the hive, and by which
the comb is attached, being much broader than the rest;
whence the comb is more strongly united to the hive
than if these cells were of the ordinary shape. It of
course follows that the base of these cells, instead of
being formed like those of the hexagonal cells of three
rhomboids, consists of one rhomboid and two trape-
ziums.

The form of a new comb is lenticular, its thickness
always diminishing towards the edges. This gradation
is constantly observable while it keeps enlarging in cir-
cumference ; but as soon as the bees get sufficient space
to lengthen it, it begins to lose this form and to assume
parallel surfaces : it has then received the shape which it
will always preserve.

The bees appear to give the proper forms to the bot-
toms of the cells by means of their antennae, which ex-
traordinary organs they seem to employ as directors by
which their other instruments are instructed to execute
a very complex work. They do not remove a single
particle of wax until the antennae have explored the sur-
face that is to be sculptured. By the use of these or-
gans, which are so flexible and so readily applied to all
parts, however delicate, that they can perform the func-
tions of compasses in measuring very minute objects.

496 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

they can work in the dark, and raise those wonderful
combs the first production of insects.

Every part of the work appears a natural consequence
of that which precedes it, so that chance has no share in
the admirable results witnessed. The bees cannot de-
part from their prescribed route, except in consequence
of particular circumstances which alter the basis of their
labour. The original mass of wax is never augmented
but by an uniform quantity; and what is most astonish-
ing, this augmentation is made by the wax-makers, who
are the depositaries of the primary matter, and possess
not the art of sculpturing the cells.

The bees never begin two masses for combs at the
same time ; but scarcely are some rows of cells con-
structed in the first, when two other masses, one on
each side of it, are established at equal distances from
it and parallel to it, and then again two more exterior
to these. The combs are always enlarged and length-
ened in a progression proportioned to the priority of their
origin ; the middle comb being constantly advanced be-
yond the two adjoining ones by some rows of cells, and
they beyond those that are exterior to them. Was it
permitted to these insects to lay the foundation of all
their combs at the same time, they could not be placed
conveniently or parallel to each other. So with respect
to the cells, the first cavity determines the place of all
that succeed it.

A large number of bees work at the same time on the
same comb ; but they are not moved to it by a shnul-
taneous but by a successive impulse. A single bee be-
gins every partial operation, and many others in siicces-

HABITATIONS OP INSECTS. 497

sion add their efforts to hers, each appearing to act in-
dividually in a direction impressed either by the workers
who have preceded it, or by the condition in which it
finds the work. The whole population of wax-makers
is in a state of the most complete inaction till one bee
goes forth to lay the foundations of the first comb. Im-
mediately others second her intentions, adding to the
height and length of the mass ; and when they cease to
act, a bee, if the term may be used, of another profes-
sion, one of the nurse-bees, goes to form the draught of
the first cell, in which she is succeeded by others.

The diameters of the cells intended for the larvae of
workers is always 2|- lines, that of those meant for the
larvae of the males or drones 84- lines. The male cells
are generally in the middle of the combs, or in their
sides ; rarely in their upper part. They are never in-
sulated, but form a corresponding group on both sides
the comb. When the bees form male cells below those
of neuters, they construct many rows of intermediate ones,
the diameter of which augments progressively till it at-
tains that of a male cell ; and they observe the same me-
thod when they revert from male cells to those of neuters.
It appears to be the oviposition of the queen which de-
cides the kind of cells that are to be made : while she
lays the eggs of workers, no male cells are constructed ;
but when she is about to lay the eggs of males, the neu-
ters appear to know it and act accordingly. — When there
is a very large harvest of honey, the bees increase the
diameter and even the length of their cells. At this
time many irregular combs may be seen with cells of
twelve, fifteen, and even eighteen lines in length. Some-

voL. I. 2 k

498 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

times also they have occasion to shorten the cells. When
they wish to lengthen an old comb, the tubes of which
have acquired their full dimensions, they gradually di-
minish the thickness of its edges, gnawincr down the sides
of the cells till it assumes the lenticular form : they then
engraft a mass of wax round it, and so proceed with
new cells.

Variations, as has been already hinted, sometimes take
place in the position and even form of the combs. Oc-
casionally the bees construct cells of the common shape
upon the wood to which the combs are fixed, without
pyramidal bottoms, and from them continue their work
as usual. These cells with a flat bottom, or rather with
the wood for their bottom, are more irregular than the
common ones; some of their orifices are not angular, and
their dimensions are not exact, but all are more or less
hexagonal. Once when disturbed, Huber observed
them to begin their combs on one of the vertical sides
of the hive instead of on the roof. When particular
circumstances caused it, as, for instance, when glass was
introduced, to which they do not like to fix their combs,
he remarked that they constantly varied their direction ;
and by repeating the attempt, he forced them to form
their combs in the most fantastic manner. Yet glass is
an artificial substance, against which instinct merely
cannot have provided them : there is nothing in hollow
trees, their natural habitation, resembling it. — When
they change the direction of their combs, they enlarge
the cells of one side to two or three times the dia-
meter of those of the other, which gives the requisite
curve.

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 499

To complete the detail of these interesting discoveries
of the elder Huber, I must lay before you the following
additional observations of his son.

The first base of the combs upon which the bees work
holds three or four cells, sometimes more. — The comb
continues of the same width for three or four inches,
and then begins to widen for three quarters of its length.
The bees engaged at the bottom lengthen it downwards ;
those on the sides widen it to right and left ; and those
which are employed above the thickest part extend its
dimensions upwards. The more a comb is enlarged be-
low, the more it is necessary that it should be ' enlarged
upwards to the top of the hive. The bees that are en-
gaged in lengthening the comb, work with more celerity
than those which increase its width ; and those that as-
cend or increase its width upwards, more slowly than
the rest. Hence it arises that it is longer than wide,
and narrower towards the top than towards the middle.
— The first formed cells are usually not so deep as those
in the middle ; but when the comb is of a certain height,
they are in haste to lengthen these cells so essential to
the solidity of the whole, sometimes even making them
longer than the rest. — The cells are not perfectly hori-
zontal; they are almost always a little higher towards
their mouth than at their base, so that their axis is not
perpendicular to the partition that separates the two as-
semblages. They sometimes vary from the horizontal
line more than 20°, usually 4° or 5°. When the bees
enlarge the diameter of the cells preparatory to the for-
mation of male cells, the bottoms often consist of two
rhomboids and two hexagons, the size and form of which

2 K 2

500 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

vary, and they correspond with four instead of three op-
posite cells. — The works of bees are symmetrical less
perhaps in minute details than considered as a whole.
Sometimes, indeed, their combs have a fantastic form ;
but this, if traced, will be found to be caused by cir-
cumstances : one irregularity occasions another, and
both usually have their origin in the dispositions which
we make them adopt. The inconstancy of climate, too,
occasions frequent interruptions, and injures the sym-
metry of the combs ; for a work resumed is always less
perfect than one followed up until completed.

At first the substance of the cells is of a dead white,
semitransparent, soft, and though even, not smooth:
but in a few days it loses most of these qualities, or
rather acquires new ones ; a yellow tint spreads over the
cells, particularly their interior surface : their edges be-
come thicker, and they have acquired a consistence,
which at first they did not possess. The combs also
when finished are heavier than the unfinished ones : these
last are broken by the slightest touch, whereas the former
will bend sooner than break. Their orifices also have
something adhesive, and they melt less readily; whence
it is evident that the finished combs contain something _
not present in the unfinished ones. In examining the
orifice of the yellow cells, their contour appeared to the
younger Huber to be besmeared with a reddish varnish,
unctuous, strong-scented, and similar to, if not the same
as, propolis. Sometimes there were red threads in the
interior, which were also applied round the sides, rhombs,
or trapeziums. This solder, as it may be called, placed
at the point of contact of the different parts, and at the""

HABITATIONS OP INSECTS* 501

summit of the angles formed by their meeting, seemed to
give soHdity to the cells, romid the axis of the longest of
which there were sometimes one or two red zones. From
subsequent experiments, M. Huber ascertained that this
substance was actually propolis^ collected from the buds
of the poplar. He saw them with their mandibles draw
a thread from the mass of propolis that was most con-
veniently situated, and breaking it by a sudden jerk of
the head, take it with the claws of their fore-legs, and
then, entering the cell, place it at the angles and sides, &c.
which they had previously planished. The yellow co-
lour, however, is not given by the propolis, and it is not
certain to what it is owing. — The bees sometimes mix
wax and propolis and make an amalgam, known to the
ancients and called by them Mitys and Pissoceros, which
they use in rebuilding cells that have been destroyed, in
orden to strengthen and support the edifice ^.

We know but little of the proceedings of the species
of bees not indigenous to Europe, which live in socie-
ties and construct combs like that cultivated by us. A
traveller in Brazil mentions one there which builds a
kind of natural hive : " On an excursion towards upper
Tapagippe," says he, " and skirting the dreary woods
which extend to the interior, I observed the trees more
loaded with bees' nests than even in the neighbourhood
of Porto Seguro. They consist of a ponderous shell of
clay, cemented similarly to martins' nests, swelling from
high trees about a foot thick, and forming an oval mass

* Nouvelles Observations sur les Abeilles, par Fran9ois Huber, ii.
101-288. I observed the bees collecting propolis this spring from
the buds of Pojmlus baUamifcra,

502 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

full two feet in diameter. When broken, the wax is ar-
ranged as in our hives, and the honey abundant*."

Humble-bees are the only tribe besides the hive-bee,
that in this part of the world construct nests by the united
labour of the society. The habitations composing them
are of a rude construction, and the streets are arranged
with little architectural regularity. The number of in-
habitants, too, is small, rarely exceeding two or three
hundred, and often not more than twenty. The nests
of some species, as of Apis lapidaria^ A. terrestris, &c.
are found under ground at the depth of a foot or more
below the surface ; but as the internal structure of these
does not essentially differ from that of the more singular
habitations of A. Miisconwi, and as some of the subter-
ranean species occasionally adopt the same situation, I
shall confine my description to the latter.

These nests, which do not exceed six or eight inches
in diameter, are generally found in meadows and pas-
tures, and sometimes in hedge- rows where the soil is en-
tangled with roots. The lower half occupies a cavity
in the soil, either accidentally found ready made, or ex-
cavated with great labour by the bees. The upper part
or dome of the nest is composed of a thick felted cover-
ing of moss, having the interior ceiling coated with a
thin roof of coarse wax for the purpose of keeping out
the wet. The entrance is in the lower part, and is ge-
nerally through a gallery or covered way, sometimes
more than a foot in length and half an inch in diameter,
by means of which the nest is more effectually concealed
» LincUev in li. MiUtari/ Chromcle, March 1815. 449.

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 503

from observation. On removing the coping of moss,
the interior presents to our view a very different scene
from that witnessed in a bee-hive. Instead of numerous
vertical combs of wax, we see merely a few irregular ho-
rizontal combs placed one above the other, the upper-
most resting upon the more elevated parts of the lower,
and connected together by small pillars of wax. Each
of these combs consists of several groups of pale-yellow
oval bodies of three different sizes, those in the middle
being die largest, closely joined to each other, and each
group connected with those next it by slight joinings of
wax. These oval bodies are not, as you might suppose,
the work of the old bees, but the silken cocoons spun by
the young larvae. Some are closed at the upper extre-
mity ; others, which chiefly occupy the lower combs,
have this part open. The former are those which yet
include their immature tenants ; the latter are the empty
cases from which the young bees have escaped. On the
surface of the upper comb are seen several masses of wax
of a flattened spheroidal shape, and of very various di-
mensions ; some above an inch and others not a quarter
of an inch in diameter : which on being opened are found
to include a number of larvae surrounded with a supply
of pollen moistened with honey. These, which are the
true cells, are chiefly tlie work of the female, which after
depositing her eggs in them furnishes them with a store
of pollen and honey; and, when this is consumed, sup-
plies the larvae with a daily provision, as has been de-
scribed in a former letter, until they are sufficiently
grown to spin the cocoons before spoken of. Lastly, in
all the corners of the combs, and especial Iv in the mid-

504- HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

die, we observe a considerable number of small goblet-
like vessels, filled with honey and pollen, which are not,
as in the case of the hive-bee, the fabrication of the
workers, but are chiefly the empty cocoons left by the
larvae. It falls to the workers, however, to cut off the
fragments of silk from the orifice of the cocoon, which,
after giving it a regular circular form, they strengthen
by a ring or elevated tube of wax made in a different
shape by different species ; and to coat them internally
with a lining of the same material. They even occasion-
ally construct honey-pots entirely of wax ^.

The most curious circumstance in the construction of
these nests, is the mode in which the bees transport the
moss employed in forming the roof. When they have
discovered a parcel of this material conveniently situated
upon the ground, five or six insects place themselves
upon it in a file, turning the hinder part of their bodies
towards the quarter to which it is meant to be conveyed.
The first takes a small portion, and with its jaws and
fore-legs as it were felts it together. When the fibres
are sufficiently entangled, it pushes them under its body
by means of the first pair of legs ; the intermediate pair
receive the moss, and deliver it to the last, which pro-
trude it as far as possible beyond the anus. When by
this process the insect has formed behind it a small ball
of well-carded moss, the next bee pushes it to the third,
which consigns it in like manner to that behind it ; and
thus the balls are conveyed to the foot of the nest, and
from thence elevated to the summit, much in the same
way that a file of labourers transfer a parcel of cheeses
» Huber, Linn. Tr. vi. 215-298.

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 505

from a vessel or cart to a warehouse ". It is easy to per-
ceive that a vast saving of time must ensue from this
well contrived division of labour ; the structure rising
much more rapidly than if every individual had been em-
ployed first in carding his materials, and then in trans-
ferring them to the spot.

Wasps, though ferocious and cruel towards their fel-
low-insects, are civilized and polished in their inter-
course with each other, and form a community whose
architectural labours will not suffer on comparison even
with those of the peaceful inhabitants of a bee-hive.
Like these, the great object of their industry is the erec-
tion of a structure for their beloved progeny, towards
which they discover the greatest tenderness and affec-
tion, and they even in like manner construct combs con-
sisting of hexagonal cells for their reception; but the
substance which they make use of is very dissimilar to
the wax employed by bees, and the general plan of their
city differs in many respects from that of a bee-hive.

The common wasp's nest, usually situated in a cavity
under ground, is of an oval figure, about sixteen or
eighteen inches long by twelve or thirteen broad. Ex-
ternally it is surrounded by a thick coating of numerous
leaves of a sort of grayish paper, which do not touch
each other, but have a small interval between each, so
that if the rain should chance to penetrate one or two of
them, its progress is speedily arrested. On removing
this external covering, we perceive that the interior con-
sists of from twelve to fifteen circular combs of different
•^ Reaum. vi. 7-10.

506 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

sizes, not ranged vertically as in a bee-hive, but hori-
zontally, so as to form so many distinct and parallel
stories. Each comb is composed of a numerous as-
semblage of hexagonal cells formed of the same paper-
like substance as the exterior covering of the nest, and,
according to a discovery of Dr. Barclay, each, as in those
of bees, a distinct cell, the partition walls being double '.
These cells, which, as wasps do not store up any food,
serve merely as the habitations of their young, are not,
like those of the honey-bee, arranged in two opposite
layers, but in one only, their entrance being always
downwards : consequently the upper part of the comb,
composed of the bases of the cells, which are not pyra-
midal but slightly convex, forms a nearly level floor, on
which the inhabitants can conveniently pass and repass,
spaces of about half an inch high being left between each
comb. Although the combs are fixed to the sides of the
nest, they would not be sufficiently strong without
further support. The ingenious builders, therefore,
connect each comb to that below it by a number of strong
cylindrical columns or pillars, having according to the
rules of architecture their base and capital wider than
the shaft, and composed of the same paper-like material
used in other parts of the nest, but of a more compact
substance. The middle combs are connected by a rustic
colonnade of from forty to fifty of these pillars ; the up-
per and lower combs by a smaller number.

The cells, which in a populous nest are not fewer than
1G,000, are of different sizes, corresponding to that of

^Memoirs of the Wernerian Socie/i/, ii. 260,

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 507

the three orders of individuals which compose the com-
munity ; the largest for the grubs of females, the smallest
for those of workers. The last always occupy an entire
comb, while the cells of the males and females are often
intermixed. — Besides openmgs which are left between
the walls of the combs to admit of access from one to the
other, there are at the bottom of each nest two holes, by
one of which the wasps uniformly enter, and through
the other issue from the nest, and thus avoid all con-
fusion or interruption of their common labours. As the
nest is often a foot and a half under ground, it is requisite
that a covered way should lead to its entrance. This is
excavated by the wasps, who are excellent miners, and
is often very long and tortuous, forming a beaten road
to the subterranean city, well known to the inhabitants
though its entrance is concealed from incurious eyes.
T,he cavity itself which contains the nest is either the
abandoned habitation of moles or field-mice, or a cavern
purposely dug out by the wasps, which exert themselves
with such industry as to accomplish the arduous imder-
taking in a few days.

When the cavity and entrance to it are completed,
the next part of the process is to lay the foundations of
the city to be included in it, which, contrary to the
usual custom of builders, wasps begin at the top, con-
tinuing downwards. I have already told you that the
coatings which compose the dome are a sort of rough
but thin paper, and that the rest of the nest is composed
of the same substance variously applied. " Whence,"
3'ou will inquire, "do the wasps derive it?" They are
manufacturers of the article, and prepare it from a ma-

508 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

terial even more singular than any of those which have
of late been proposed for this purpose ; namely, the fibres
of wood *. These they detach by means of their jaws
from window-frames, posts and rails, &c., and, when
they have amassed a heap of the filaments, moisten the
whole with a few drops of a Adscid glue fi-om their mouth,
and, kneading it with their jaws into a sort of paste or
papier viache, fly off it with it to their nest. This ductile
mass they attach to that part of the building upon which
they are at work, walking backwards and spreading it
into laminae of the requisite thinness by means of their
jaws, tongue, and legs. This operation is repeated
several times, until at length, by aid of fi*esh supplies of
the material and the combined exertions of so many
workmen, the proper number of layers of paper that are
to compose the roof is finished. This paper is as thin
as that of the letter which you are reading; and you
may form an idea of the labour which even the exterior
of a wasp's nest requires, on being told that not fewer
than fifteen or sixteen sheets of it are usually placed above
each other with slight intervenmg spaces, making the
whole upwards of an inch and a half in thickness. When
the dome is completed, the uppermost comb is next be-
gun, in which, as well as all the other parts of the
building, precisely the same material and the same pro-
cess, with little variation, are employed. In the struc-
ture of the connecting pillars there seems a greater quan-

» Reaumur says decaying wood, vi. 182; but White asserts (and
my own observations confirm his opinion) that wasps obtain their
paper from souiid timber ; hornets, only from that which is decayed.
White'i Nat. Hist, by Markwick, ii. 22S.

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 509

tity of glue made use of than in the rest of the work,
doubtless with the view of giving them a superior solidi-
ty.— When the first comb is finished, the continuation
of the roof or walls of the building is brought down
lower ; a new comb is erected ; and thus the work suc-
cessively proceeds until the whole is finished. As a com-
paratively small proportion of the society is engaged in
constructing the nest, its entire completion is the work
of several months : yet, though the fruit of such severe
labour, it has scarcely been finished a few weeks before
winter comes on, when it merely serves for the abode of
a few benumbed females, and is entirely abandoned at
the approach of spring ; wasps never using the same nest
for more than one season ^.

The nests of the hornet in their general construction
resemble those of the common wasp, but the paper of
which they are composed is of a much more rough tex-
ture ; the columns which support the comb are higher
and more massive ; and that in the centre larger than
the rest.

These last, as well as wasps, conceal their nest, sus-
pending it in the corners of outhouses, &c. ; but there
are other species which construct their habitations in
open day-light, affixing them to the branches of shrubs
or trees.

One of these, described by Latreille, the work of
Vespa hohatica^ F., a species not uncommon with us,
resembles in shape a cone of the cedar of Lebanon, and
is composed of an envelope and the comb, the former
consisting of three partial envelopes, each of the interior
* Reaum. vi. Mem. 6.

510 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

of which is longer than the preceding. The comb com-
prises about thirty hexagonal cells circularly arranged,
those of the circumference being lower and smaller^.

A vespiary somewhat similar to the above, but of a
depressed globular figure, and composed of more nu-
merous envelopes, so as to assume a considerable re-
semblance to a half-expanded Provence rose, is figured
by Reaumur^: and for a very beautiful specimen ap-
parently of the same kind (except that it contains but
one stage of cells), which was found in the garden at
East-Dale, I am indebted to the kindness of Henry
Thompson, esq. of Hull.

Another species [Vespa Parietum^'^) attaches its small
group of about twenty inverted crucible-like cells to a
piece of wood without any covering**.

But all these yield in point of singularity of sti'ucture
to the habitation of Polistes nidulans ( Vespa chartaria,
Oliv.), a native of Cayenne, which constructs its nest of
a beautifully polished white and solid paste-board, im-
penetrable by the weather. These are in shape some-
what like a bell, often a foot and a half long, and fixed
by their upper end to the branch of a tree from which
they are securely suspended. Their interior is com-
posed of numerous concave horizontal combs, with the
openings of the cells turned downwards, fastened to the
sides without any pillars, and having a hole through
each to admit of access to the uppermost *.

* Annales du Museum cfHist. Nat. i. 289.

^ vi. t. 1 9. f. i. 2. <: Rosel Vesp. t. 7. f. a

«• Rosel II. ^^ii. 30. « Reaum. vi. 224.

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 511

I CLOSE my account of the habitations of insects with
the description of those constructed by the Termites^ a
tril)e alluded to in former letters.

Tlie different species, which are numerous, build
nests of very various forms. Some ( T. atrox and mor-
dax, Sm.) construct upon the ground a cyhndrical tur-
ret of clay about three quarters of a yard high, sur-
rounded by a projecting conical roof, so as in shape con-
siderably to resemble a mushroom, and composed in-
teriorly of innumerable cells of various figures and
dimensions. Others, as T. Destructor, F., T. Arhorum,
Sm.), prefer a more elevated site, and build their nests,
which are of different sizes, from that of a hat to
that of a sugar-cask, and composed of pieces of wood
glued together, amongst the branches of trees often
seventy or eighty feet high. But by far the most cu-
rious habitations, and to which, therefore, I shall con-
fine a minute description, are those formed by the
Termes fatalis {T. bellicosiis, Sm.), a species very com-
mon in Gumea and other parts of the coast of Africa,
of whose proceedings we have a very particular and in-
teresting account in the 71st volume of the Philosophi-
cal Transactio7is, from the pen of Mr. Smeathman.

These nests are formed entirely of clay, and are ge-
nei'ally twelve feet high and broad in proportion, so that
when a cluster of them, as is often the case, are placed
together, they may be taken for an Indian village, and
are in fact sometimes larger than the huts which the na-
tives inhabit. The first process in the erection of these
singular structures, is the elevation of two or tln-ee tur-

512 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

rets of clay about a foot high, and in shape like a sugar-
loaf. These, which seem to be the scaffolds of the future
building, rapidly increase in number and height, until
at length being widened at the base, joined at the top
into one dome, and consolidated all round into a thick
wall of clay, they form a building of the size above men-
tioned, and of the shape of a hay-cock, which when
clothed, as it generally soon becomes, with a coating of
grass, it at a distance very much resembles. When the
building has assumed this its final form, the inner tur-
rets, all but the tops, which project like pinnacles from
different parts of it, are removed, and the clay employed
over again in other services.

It is the lower part alone of the building that is occu-
pied by the inhabitants. The upper portion or dome,
which is very strong and solid, is left empty, serving
principally as a defence from the vicissitudes of the
weather and the attacks of natural or accidental ene-
mies, and to keep up in the lower part a genial warmth
and moisture necessary to the hatching of the eggs and
cherishing of the young ones. The inhabited portion is
occupied by the royal chamber^ or habitation of the
king and queen ; the nurseries for the young ; the store-
houses for food; and innumerable galleries, passages,
and empty rooms : arranged according to the following
plan.

In the centre of the building, just under the apex,
and nearly on a level with the surface of the ground, is
placed the royal chamber, an arched vault of a semi-
oval shape, or not unlike a long oven ; at first not above
an inch long, but enlarged as the queen increases in

PROPERTY OF

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 513

bulk to the length of eight inches or more. In this
apartment the king and queen constantly reside; and
from the smallness of the entrances, which are barely
large enough to admit their more diminutive subjects,
can never possibly come out; thus, like many human
potentates, purchasing their sovereignty at the dear
rate of the sacrifice of liberty. Immediately adjoining
the royal chamber, and surrounding it on all sides to
the extent of a foot or more, are placed what Mr.
Smeathman calls the 7'oyal apartments^ an inextricable
labyrinth of innumerable arched rooms of different
shapes and sizes, either opening into each other or com-
municating by common passages, and intended for the
accommodation of the soldiers and attendants, of whom
many thousands are always in waiting on their royal
master and mistress. Next to the royal apartments
come the nurseries and the magazmes. The former are
invariably occupied by the eggs and young ones, and in
the infant state of the nest are placed close to the royal
chamber; but when the queen's augmented size re-
quires a larger apartment, as well as additional rooms
for the increased number of attendants wanted to remove
her eggs, the small nurseries are taken to pieces, rebuilt
at a greater distance a size bigger, and their number in-
creased at the same time. In substance they differ from
all the other apartments, being formed of particles of
wood apparently joined together with gums. A col-
lection of these compact, irregular, and small wooden
chambers, not one of which is half an inch in width, is
inclosed in a common chamber of clay sometimes as big

VOL. 1. 2 L

?="

5H HABITATIONS OF INSFXTS.

as a child's head. — Intermixed with the nurseries lie the
magazines, which are chambers of clay always well
stored with provisions, consisting of particles of wood,
gums, and the inspissated juices of plants.

These magazines and nurseries, separated by small
empty chambers and galleries, which run round them
or communicate from, one to the other, are continued on
all sides to the outer wall of the building, and reach up
within it two-thirds or three-fourths of its height. They
do not, however, fill up the whole of the lower part of
the hill, but are confined to the sides, leaving an open
area in the middle, under the dome, very much resem-
bling the nave of an old cathedral, having its roof sup-
ported by three or four very large Gothic arches, of which
those in the middle of the area are sometimes two and
three feet high, but as they recede on each side rapidly
diminish like the arches of aisles in perspective. A flat-
tish roof, imperforated in order to keep out the wet, if
the dome should chance to be injured, covers the top of
the assemblage of chambers, nurseries, &c. ; and the
area, which is a short height above the royal chamber,
has a flattish floor also water-proof, and so contrived as
to let any rain that may chance to get in run off into the
subterraneous passages.

These passages or galleries, which are of an astonish-
ing size, some being above a foot in diameter and per-
fectly cylindrical, lined with the same kind of clay of
which the hill is composed, served originally, like the
catacombs of Paris, as the quarries whence the materials
of the building were derived, and afterwards as the grand

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 515

outlets by which the Termites carry on their depreda-
tions at a distance from their habitations. They run in
a sloping direction under the bottom of the hill to the
depth of three or four feet, and then branching out hori-
zontally on every side, are carried under ground, near
to the surface, to a vast distance. At their entrance
into the interior they communicate with other smaller
galleries, which ascend the inside of the outer shell in a
spiral manner, and, winding round the whole building
to the top, intersect each other at different heights,
opening either immediately into the dome in various
places, and into the lower half of the building, or com-
municating with every part of it by other smaller circular
or oval galleries of different diameters. The necessity for
the vast size of the main underground galleries evidently
arises from the circumstance of their being the great
thoroughfares for the inhabitants, by which they fetch
their clay, wood, water, or provision ; and their spiral
and gradual ascent is requisite for the easy access of the
Termites, which cannot but with great difficulty ascend
a perpendicular. To avoid this inconvenience, in the
interior vertical parts of the building, a flat path-way,
half an inch wide, is often made to wind gradually, like
a road cut out of the side of a mountain, by which they
travel with great facility up ascents otherwise impracti-
cable. The same ingenious propensity to shorten their
labour seems to have given birth to a contrivance still
more extraordinary. This is a kind of bridge of one
vast arch, sprung from the floor of the area to the upper
apartments at the side of the building, which answers

2 L 2

516 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

the purpose of a fliglit of stairs, and must shorten the
distance exceedingly in transporting eggs fi'om the royal
chambers to the upper nurseries, which in some hills
would be four or five feet in the straightest line, and
much more if carried through all the winding passages
which lead through the inner chambers and apartments.
Mr. Smeathman measured one of these bridges, which
was half an inch broad, a quarter of an inch thick, and
ten inches long, making the side of an elliptic arch of
proportionable size, so that it is wonderful it did not fall
over or break by its own weight before they got it joined
to the side of the column above. It was strengthened
by a small arch at the bottom, and had a hollow or
groove all the length of the upper surface, either made
purposely for the greater safety of the passengers, or else
worn by frequent treading. It is not the least surprising
circumstance attending this bridge, the Gothic arches
before spoken of, and in general all the arches of the
various galleries and apartments, that, as Mr. Smeath-
man saw every reason for believing, the Termites project
their arches, and do not, as one would have supposed,
excavate them.

Consider what incredible labour and diligence, ac-
companied by the most unremitting activity and the
most unwearied celerity of movement, must be necessary
to enable these creatures to accomplish, their size consi^
dered, these truly gigantic works. That such diminutive
insects, for they are scarcely the fourth of an inch in
length, however numerous, should, in the space of three
or four years, be able to erect a building twelve feet

HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 517

high and of a proportionable bulk, covered by a vast
dome, adorned without by numerous pinnacles and tur-
rets, and sheltering under its ample arch myriads of
vaulted apartments of various dimensions, and con-
structed of different materials — that they should more-
over excavate, in different directions and at different
deptlis, innumerable subterranean roads or tunnels,
some twelve or thirteen inches in diameter, or throw
an arch of stone over other roads leading from the me-
tropolis into the adjoining country to the distance of
several hundred feet — that they should project and finish
the, for them, vast interior stair-cases or bridges lately
described — and, finally, that the millions necessary to
execute such Herculean labours, perpetually passing to
and fro, should never interrupt or interfere with each
other, is a miracle of nature, or rather of the Author of
nature, far exceeding the most boasted works and struc-
tures of man : for, did these creatures equal him in size,
retaining their usual instincts and activity, their build-
ings would soar to the astonishing height of more than
half a mile, and their tunnels would expand to a mag-
nificent cylinder of more than three hundred feet in
diameter ; before which the pyramids of Egypt and the
aqueducts of Rome would lose all their celebrity, and
dwindle into nothings *. So that when in the commence-

* The most elevated of the pyramids of Egypt is not more than
600 feet high, which, setting the average height of man at only five
feet, is not more than 130 times the height of ihe workmen em-
ployed. Whereas the nests of the Termites being at least twelve
feet high, and the insects themselves not exceeding a quarter of an

518 . HABITATIONS OF INSECTS.

ment of my last letter I promised to introduce you to
insects whose labours produced edifices more astonishing
than those of the mightiest Egyptian monarchs, the py-
ramids, my promise, whatever you then thought of it,
was the reverse of hyperbolical.

I am, &c.

inch in stature, their edifice is upwards of 500 times the height of
the builders ; which, supposing them of human dimensions, would
be more than half a mile. The shaft of the Roman aqueducts was
lofty enough to permit a man on horseback to travel in them.

END OF THE FIJIST V0LU5IE.

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EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES.

PLATE I.

COLEOPTERA. ;

Fig. 1. Calosoma Sycophanta.

2. Staphylinus cyaneus. j

3. Siagonium quadricornc, Nov. Gen. K. magnified. |
4-. Malthinus. !

5. Molorchus. \

6. Meloe. i

Dermapteha. ]

7. Forficula gigantea. i

PLATE IL

Strepsiptera.
Fig. 1. Xenos Peckii. Lijin. Trans. \

Orthoptera. '

2. Acheta Gryllotalpa.

3. Blatta germanica, i

Hemiptera. j

4>. Ledra aurita.

5. Cimex rufipes. ;

PLATE in. i

Lepidoptera. :
Fig. 1, Papilio dispar mas?

2. Sesia asiliformis, i

3. Bombyx pulchella. j

Trichoptera. I

4. Phryganea varia ?

Neuroptera. I

o. Libellula cancellata. j

6. Raphidiu notata, Fab. Mantiss.

LONDON:

PRIKTED BY HICHARD AND ARTHUR TAYLOK,
SHOE-LANK.

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