OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES. 'INSECTS IN GENERAL. THE day and night insects occupy the annuals alternately : the papilios, musca, and apes, are succeeded at the close of day oy phalana, earwigs,* woodlice, &c. In the dusk of the evening, when beetles begin to buzz, 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 phalana 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 tipula and empedes,) appear sporting and dancing over the tops of the evergreen 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 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. ‡ are. Earwigs, although it is not generally known, are capable of flying. This is mentioned by Kirby and Spence; and Mr Denson, of Bayswater, establishes this fact by experiment. He says, "Each, before taking flight, aided, or effected the expansion of its snow-white membranous wings with the forceps in its tail, which it turned over its back, and used with admirable adroitness. They flew ably, and in curves of short diameters." ED. This I have often observed, having seen bees and other winged insects swarming about the flowers of the ivy very late in the autumn.MARKWICK. 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 the winter, even when the ground has been covered with snow. — MARKWICK. 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 Money-dells, 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 twenty-eighth. 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. Cock-chaffers 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 twenty-six : 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. ‡ *This sound does not proceed from bees, as our author supposes, but from the common gnat (culex pipiens.) We particularly noticed this in August, 1832, in a lane which leads from the back of Warriston Crescent, to the Newhaven road. On the third, the air was very hot, and the sound proceeded from the top of some high trees. Next day we passed the same road; the air was more cold and somewhat moist, when these gnats were sporting in the sunbeams, close to the top of a hedge, which was not more than four feet high. This mighty congregation of gnats formed a lengthened column of two hundred yards, by about a yard in breadth, and two yards in depth; their numbers we believe to have been greater than there have been human beings on our globe, from the creation to the present time. -ED. + Respect being had to the size of the cock-chaffer, it is six times stronger than a horse; and if the elephant, as Linnæus observed, was strong in proportion to the stag-beetle, it would be able to pull up rocks by the root, and to level mountains; were the lion and tiger as strong and as swift for their magnitude, as the cicindela and the beetle, nothing could escape them by precaution, or withstand them by strength.-ED. A singular circumstance relative to the cock-chaffer, or, as it is called here, the May-bug, (scarabæus melolontha,) happened this year (1800.) - PTINUS PECTINICORNIS.- -Those maggots that make wormholes in tables, chairs, bed-posts, &c. and destroy wooden furniture, especially where there is any sap, are the larva 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 pupa 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. * BLATTA ORIENTALIS, (COCKROACH.)— A neighbour complained to me that her house was overrun with a kind of black beetle, or, as she expressed herself, with a kind of blackbob, which swarmed in her kitchen when they got up in the morning before daybreak. 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 molendinaria of Mouffet. The male is winged; the female is not, but shews somewhat like the rudiments of wings, as if in the pupa state. These insects belonged originally to the warmer parts of America, and were conveyed from thence by shipping to the My gardener, in digging some ground, found, about six incnes under the surface, two of these insects alive, and perfectly formed, so early as the twenty-fourth 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 insect till the twenty-second of May, when it began to make its appearance. How comes it, that though it was perfectly formed so early as the twentyfourth of March, it did not shew itself above ground till nearly two months afterwards? - MARKWICK. *Naturalists have observed, that the male broods of insects invariably appear earlier than the female broods. Professor Rennie notices, that upon the leaf of a poplar tree, of three eggs of the puss moth, (cerura vinula,) which he found, two were hatched about a fortnight before the other. The first were males, and the last a female; thus distinctly proving, that eggs from which females are produced are longer of hatching. As they were found on the same leaf, they were of course presumed to be laid by the same parent; at the same time, the difference in the time of hatching could not depend upon any atmospherical cause. -ED. 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, lucifuge, 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 blatta 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 overstocked, have powers of migrating to fresh quarters. Since the blatta have been so much kept under, the crickets have greatly increased in number. GRYLLUS DOMESTICUS, (HOUSE-CRICKET.)- 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 * Although the cockroach is generally to be seen only on leaving its retreat after sunset, yet they occasionally do appear through the day. Our friend, Sir Patrick Walker, who is an excellent practical naturalist, and well skilled in entomology, informed us, that the captain of a vessel from the Mauritius told him, that during their passage from thence to Leith, cockroaches used simultaneously to come on deck, from the hold, which was infested with them, and take to their wings in myriads, fly several times round the vessel like a dense cloud, alight on the deck, and instantly retreat below. -ED. 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 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. 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 phalena, 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 near Greatham, I saw a flight of swifts busied in catching their prey near the ground; and found they were hawking after these phalana. The aurelia of this moth is shining, and as black as jet; and lies wrapped up in a leaf of |