283 OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES. INSECTS IN GENERAL. THE day and night insects occupy the annuals alternately the papilios, muscæ, and apes, are succeeded at the close of day by phalænæ, earwigs, woodlice, &c. In the dusk of the evening, when beetles begin to buz, partridges begin to call; these two circumstances are exactly coincident. Ivy is the last flower that supports the hymenopterous and dipterous insects. On sunny days quite on to November they swarm on trees covered with this plant; and when they disappear, probably retire under the shelter of its leaves, concealing themselves between its fibres and the trees which it entwines.* Spiders, woodlice, lepisma in cupboards and among sugar, some empedes, gnats, flies of several species, some phalænæ in hedges, earth-worms, &c., are stirring at all times when winters are mild; and are of great service to those soft-billed birds that never leave us. On every sunny day the winter through, clouds of insects usually called gnats (I suppose tipulæ and empedes) appear sporting and dancing over the tops of the ever-green trees in the shrubbery, and frisking about as if the business of generation was still going on. Hence it appears that these diptera (which by their sizes appear to be of different species) are not subject to a torpid state in the winter, as most winged insects are. At night, and in frosty weather, and when it rains and blows, they seem to retire into those trees. They often are out in a fog.t The number of beautiful alderman butterflies (vanessa utalanta) that may be seen basking on ivy blossoms on a sunny November morning render them a pleasing object to behold. They are the resort, too, of great numbers of bees, which keep up an incessant and loud humming - ED. + This I have also seen, and have frequently observed swarms of little winged insects playing up and down in the air in the middle of winter, even when the ground has been covered with snow.-ED. HUMMING IN THE AIR. THERE is a natural occurrence to be met with upon the highest part of our down in hot summer days, which always amuses me much, without giving me any satisfaction with respect to the cause of it; and that is a loud audible humming of bees in the air, though not one insect is to be seen. This sound is to be heard distinctly the whole common through, from the Moneydells, to Mr. White's avenue gate. Any person would suppose that a large swarm of bees was in motion, and playing about over his head. This noise was heard last week, on June 28th. "Resounds the living surface of the ground, Nor undelightful is the ceaseless hum To him who muses at noon. Thick in yon stream of light a thousand ways, THOMSON'S SEASONS. CHAFFERS. COCKCHAFFERS seldom abound oftener than once in three or four years; when they swarm, they deface the trees and hedges. Whole woods of oaks are stripped bare by them. Chaffers are eaten by the turkey, the rook, and the housesparrow.+ The scarabæus solstitialis first appears about June 26: they are very punctual in their coming out every year. They are a small species, about half the size of the May-chaffer, and are known in some parts by the name of the fern-chaffer.‡ The exact site whence the humming proceeds is often indicated by a coucourse of hungry swallows.--ED. A young sparrow which I picked up in my garden, and placed in a cage, for the purpose of ascertaining what food would be brought to it by its parents, was almost wholly fed on these insects.-ED. A singular circumstance relative to the cockchaffer, or as it is called here the May-bug, scarabæus melolontha, happened this year (1800): My gardener in digging some ground found, about six inches above the surface, two of these insects alive and perfectly formed so early as the 24th of March. When he brought them to me, they appeared to be as perfect and as much alive as in the midst of summer, crawling about as briskly as ever; yet I saw no more of this insec: till the 22d of May, when it began to make its appearance. How comes it that, though it was perfectly formed so early as the 24th of March, it did not show itself above ground till nearly two months afterwards ?-MARKWICK. PTINUS PECTINICORNIS. THOSE maggots that make worm-holes in tables, chairs, bed. posts, &c., and destroy wooden furniture, especially where there is any sap, are the larvae of the ptinus pectinicornis. This insect, it is probable, deposits its eggs on the surface, and the worms eat their way in. In their holes they turn into their pupæ state, and so come forth winged in July: eating their way through the valances or curtains of a bed, or any other furniture that happens to obstruct their passage. They seem to be most inclined to breed in beech; hence beech will not make lasting utensils, or furniture. If their eggs are deposited on the surface, frequent rubbing will preserve wooden furniture. COCKROACH. BLATTA ORIENTALIS. A NEIGHBOUR complained to me that her house was over-run with a kind of black beetle, or as she expressed herself, with a kind of black-bob, which swarmed in her kitchen when they got up in a morning before day-break. Soon after this account, I observed an unusual insect in one of my dark chimney closets, and find since, that in the night they swarm also in my kitchen. On examination, I soon ascertained the species to be the blatta orientalis of Linnæus, and the blatta molen. dinaria of Mouffet. The male is winged; the female is not, but shows somewhat like the rudiments of wings, as if in the pupa state. Cockroach. These insects belonged originally to the warmer parts of America, and were conveyed from thence by shipping to the East Indies; and by means of commerce begin to prevail in the more northern parts of Europe, as Russia, Sweden, &c. How long they have abounded in England I cannot say; but have never observed them in my house till lately. They love warmth, and haunt chimney-closets, and the backs. of ovens. Poda says that these and house crickets will not associate together; but he is mistaken in that assertion, as Linnæus suspected he was. They are altogether night insects, lucifuga, never coming forth till the rooms are dark and still, and escaping away nimbly at the approach of a candle. Their antennæ are remarkably long, slender, and flexile. October 1790. After the servants are gone to bed, the kitchen hearth swarms with young crickets, and young blatte molendinaria of all sizes, from the most minute growth to their full proportions. They seem to live in a friendly manner together, and not to prey the one on the other. August 1792. After the destruction of many thousands of blattæ molendinaria, we find that at intervals a fresh detachment of old ones arrives, and particularly during this hot season: for the windows being left open in the evenings, the males come flying in at the casements from the neighbouring houses, which swarm with them. How the females, that seem to have no perfect wings that they can use, can contrive to get from house to house, does not so readily appear. These, like many insects, when they find their present abodes over-stocked, have powers of migrating to fresh quarters. Since the blatte have been so much kept under, the crickets have greatly increased in number.* HOUSE CRICKET. GRYLLUS DOMESTICUS. NOVEMBER. After the servants are gone to bed, the kitchen hearth swarms with minute crickets not so large as fleas, which must have been lately hatched. So that these domestic insects, cherished by the influence of a constant large fire, regard not the season of the year, but produce their young at a time when their congeners are either dead, or laid up for the winter, to pass away the uncomfortable months in the profoundest slumbers, and a state of torpidity. When house-crickets are out, and running about in a room in the night, if surprised by a candle, they give two or three shrill notes, as it were for a signal to their fellows, that they may escape to their crannies and lurking holes, to avoid danger. * There are several species of these blatte (or cockroaches) now commonly found about our dwellings.-ED. CIMEX LINEARIS. AUGUST 12, 1775. Cimices lineares are now in high copulation on ponds and pools. The females, who vastly exceed the males in bulk, dart and shoot along on the surface of the water with the males on their backs. When a female chooses to be disengaged, she rears, and jumps, and plunges, like an unruly colt; the lover thus dismounted, soon finds a new mate. The females, as fast as their curiosities are satisfied, retire to another part of the lake, perhaps to deposit their fœtus in quiet; hence the sexes are found separate, except where generation is going on. From the multitude of minute young of all gradations of sizes, these insects seem without doubt to be viviparous.* PHALENA QUERCUS. Most of our oaks are naked of leaves, and even the Holt in general, having been ravaged by the caterpillars of a small phalana which is of a pale yellow colour. These insects, though a feeble race, yet, from their infinite numbers, are of wonderful effect, being able to destroy the foliage of whole forests and districts. At this season they leave their aurelia, and issue forth in their fly-state, swarming and covering the trees and hedges. In a field at Greatham, I saw a flight of swifts busied in catching their prey near the ground; and found they were hawking after these phalanæ. The aurelic of this moth is shining and as black as jet; and lies wrapped up in a leaf of the tree, which is rolled round it, and secured at the ends by a web, to prevent the maggot from falling out.† MAY FLY. JUNE 10, 1771. EPHEMERA CAUDA BISETA. Myriads of May flies appear for the first time * Or rather there is little perceptible difference between the larva and the imago.-En. + I suspect that the insect here meant is not the phalæna quercus, but the phalana viridata concerning which I find the following note in my Naturalist's Calendar for the year 1785.* About this time, and for a few days last past, I observed the leaves of almost all the oak trees in Den copse to be eaten and destroyed, and, on examining more narrowly, saw an infinite number of small beautiful pale green moths flying about the trees, the leaves of which that were not quite destroyed were curled up, and withinside were the exuvia or remains of the chrysalis, from whence I suppose the moths had issued, and whose caterpillar had eaten the leaves.MARKWICK. * Tortrix viridana of present systematists, an insect of small size, but vivid beautiful green colour (when new from the chrysalis), which, from its excessive abundance, sometimes commits frightful ravages upon the oaks.-ED. |