After the phalænæ issue from their last covering, some of them are destitute of wings: these are the females of certain kinds, who, instead of wings, have only short protuberances, altogether unfit for the purpose of flying. They have the appearance of large creeping animals of a different order, and can only be recog. nised for moths by the shape of their antennas, which are similar to those of the males, and by those scales with which the body of these animals is covered.

Though the moths do not in general fly by day, yet it is the light which, at evening, attracts them into the dwellings of man: then it is that they are seen entering the rooms, and fluttering around the candles, where they often meet with a painful death. This fondness for light has suggested to the curious a method of catching moths, by carrying a lantern into a bower, around which they all flock, when the greater part may be led into captivity.

Out of this almost innumerable tribe of insects we can select but a few specimens.

1. P. mori. Common silk-worm. Wings pale, with three obsolete brown streaks. We have already made some observations on the produce of this curious moth, and have now only to remark, that in its native state it inhabits China, on the mulberry tree, whence its specific name, and was introduced into Europe in the reign of the emperor Justinian: it is the fine silky threads which compose the follicle of the pupe, that are converted into that valuable article of commerce and luxury, in our own country denominated silk. This species belongs to the partition bombyx: the larve is characterised by having the tail naked and whitish; the pupe is folliculate, reddish-brown.

2. P. atlas. Wings foliate, varied with yellow, white, and fer. ruginous, with a transparent spot on each, that on the upper pair with a contiguous smaller one. This is the largest and most splen. did of all the phalænæ yet known: the extent of its wings mea. sures not less than eight inches and a half. It is a native of both the indies; and occasionally varies in size and colours. It belongs to the partition bombyx: the larve is verticillate, with hairy tubercles, and spins a web of very strong yellowish silk.

3. P. luna. Wings tailed, both surfaces alike; colour elegant pea-green, with a transparent lunule eye on each wing; the upper

wings have a dark-brown rib, which extends across the thorax; body covered with white wool. It inhabits North America.

4. P. pavonia. Wings rounded, clouded with grey and barred with grey beneath, each of them with a nictitant semitransparent eye. The most beautiful European insect of the bombyx parti. tion: its wings, when extended, measure about six inches. It is subject to several varieties in its size, and the disposition of its markings; the larve is gregarious and green, verticillate with red or yellow hairy protuberances; pupe blackish, folliculate, with an elastic aperture at the rib. It is occasionally found in our own country.

5. P. sambucaria. Wings tailed, angular, yellowish, with two darker streaks; lower ones with two reddish dots at the tip. It is an elegant moth, of a pale sulphur colour, found in June and July, on the leaves of the elder-tree, whence its specific name. Its chrysalis is black, and may be readily traced in the month of May in the same situation. It belongs to the partition geometra. 6. P. vestianella. Cloth-moth. Wings cinereous with a white rib, the tips ascending and feathered. This insect belongs to the tinea division, and is the common moth found in cloths and woollen furniture, and so destructive to them.

7. P. sarcitella. Wings cinereous, thorax with a white dot on each side. This also belongs to the division tinea, and is found in skin-cloths and woollen furniture; to which, like the last, it proves terribly destructive.

These moths construct the abode in which they reside of the grains of wool, or other materials, which they gnaw off. Their food is of the same substance; and what greatly increases the extent of their devastations is, that every step they advance upon cloth, feeling themselves incommoded by the wool in their way, they gnaw a smooth passage for themselves, like a man with a scythe in his hand, cutting down the grass of the meadow as he proceeds. Hence these species are among the most destructive of the tribe. The most costly articles of fur are those which are not worn every day; and for this very reason they are most exposed to their attacks. The methods for preventing their devastations may be reduced to the two following; either we must destroy the insects, or render our clothes disagreeable food for them. The insects may be destroyed by oil, or the fumes of tobacco; and the

materials may be rendered nauseous to them, and thus escape their ravage, by having intermixed with them fragments of Russia lea. ther, or other skins, that emit and retain a strong animal odour; and it is probably on this account, though the odour is far less powerful, that this insect never commits its depredations on wool while on the back of the sheep.

8. P. pentadactyla. Body and wings snowy; upper part bifid, lower ones three-parted. A very beautiful European species, a native of our own country, and of other parts of Europe; size minute; the wing divided apparently into plumes, the upper by a delicate midrif consisting of two, the lower of three, with innumerable lateral fibres. The larve is sixteen-footed, hairy, green, with black dots, and a white dorsal line; pupe hairy-green, dotted with black. This insect belongs to the division pterophorus, which constitutes a part of the alucita of Gmelin.

9. P. hexadactyla. Wings cleft, cinereous, spotted with brown, all of the six-parted. This also belongs to the division ptero. phorus: it inhabits England, and Europe generally, and is found on the loriscera xylosteum, or honey suckle; and is likewise a most elegant and beautiful insect. It often appears before our windows, and flies in, when they are open, in a still and warm evening in September.

SECTION X.

May. Fly.

Ephemera vulgata.-LINN.

THE ephemera genus exhibits a wonderful difference between the same animal in its larva state, and that of its ultimate or perfect state; the larva being altogether aquatic, the complete insect aërial. It also affords an example of what may be termed a flying pupa; since, in some species at least, the insect is no sooner evolved from the larva than it flutters to the nearest convenient spot, and again shifts its pellicle*, the wings themselves having cast their exterior membrane. The ephemeræ are extremely

* This operation is so quick that it may be rather called springing from the chrysalis than gradually emerging.

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short-lived insects. The most familiar species is the ephemera vulgata, or common May-fly, so plentiful in the early part of summer, about the brinks of rivulets and stagnant waters. It is of a greenish brown colour, with transparent wings, elegantly mottled with brown, and is furnished at the extremity of the body with three very long black bristles. It flutters during the evening about the surface of the water, but during the day is generally seen in a quiescent posture, with the wings closed, and applied to each other in an upright position. The larva is of a lengthened shape, about an inch in length, furnished along each side of the body with several finny plumes, and at the tail with three long feathered processes: it has also a pair of moderately long antennæ, though those of the complete insect are extremely short. When arrived at its full size, as above-described, it exhibits the rudi. ments of wings on the back, in the form of a pair of oblong sheaths or scales: its colour is a pale yellowish or whitish brown. It is supposed to continue two years in this state of larve before it changes into the complete insect. This change takes place in the evening, when the larva rises to the surface of the water, and soon divesting itself of its skin, flies to some neighbouring object; and after having remained some time longer, again casts its pellicle, and appears in its ultimate or perfect form, in which, as well as in its larva state, it is a favourite food of several kinds of fishes, and particularly of the trout. In some seasons it is extremely plentiful, the air in the immediate neighbourhood of its natal waters being frequently blackened by its numbers during the evening hours. We are assured by Scopoli, that such swarms are produced every season, in the neighbourhood of some particular spots in the neighbourhood of Carniola, that the countrymen think they obtain but a small portion, unless every farmer can carry off about twenty cart.loads of them into his fields, for the purpose of a

manure.

But, of all the European ephemeræ, that which has been most celebrated, and of which almost every reader must recollect the general and superficial account, so often detailed in works of natural history, is the species described by Swammerdam. It is of a white colour, with the anterior rib of the upper wings black,

* Ephemera horaria??—Linn.

or deep brown, and the tail is furnished with two long bristles. This insect, which is common in many parts of Europe, is com. memorated as a most remarkable instance of the brevity of animal life; since after its change into the perfect animal it survives but a very few hours, perishing in the course of the same evening that gave it birth. It is to be recollected, however, that its larva lives in its aquatic state two, and even sometimes nearly three years; and is in this state so tenacious of life that Swammerdam assures us, that one which he pierced with a pin, to a board, in order to preserve it, lived all the next day notwithstanding. According to the figure given by Swammerdam, it is extremely allied to the larva of the ephemera vulgata; residing chiefly in tubular cavities, which it forms in the mud or clay of the waters it inhabits, occasionally coming out in quest of food. In this respect it agrees with the larvæ of several others of this genus, which have a similar habit of forming tubular hollows in the banks of their native waters. When arrived at full growth, the larva, or, more properly, pupa, rises, like that of the common ephemera, to the surface of the water, generally between the hours of six and seven in the evening; and the skin of the back cracking, and springing off with an elastic motion, the fly is almost instantaneously evolved, as in the common species; after which it flies to the nearest convenient spot, and again divesting itself of its pellicle, appears in its perfect or ultimate state. It now flies again to the water, and flutter. ing over its surface, as if sporting with its innumerable companions, enjoys all the pleasures of its short remainder of existence: the female breeds, deposits her eggs, and, like the male, perishes before, or with the dawn of the approaching day.

This species, according to Swammerdam, is extremely frequent in the mouths or entrances of the Rhine, the Maes, the Wael, the Leck, and the Isel. It appears in the fly or perfect state about midsummer, and the season of its appearance lasts only three days, none being seen again till the following year.