[467] Maupertuis observes, that in Lapland he saw many 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 that country there are few or none of the bark-boring insects.
[468] Latreille, Observations nouvelles sur les Hyménoptères. Annal. de Mus. 11.
[469] Nat. Hist. of Carolina, ii. 105.
[470] Reaum. vi. 282. St. Pierre's Voyage, 72.
[471] Bartram in Philos. Trans. xlvi. 126.
[472] The larvæ of some species of Coccinellæ feed, according to Prof. D. Reich, solely on the leaves of plants; as that of C. hieroglyphica, which eats the leaves of common heath (Erica vulgaris) after the manner of the larvæ of Lepidoptera. I suspect, however, that there is some mistake in this statement. Der Gesellschaft naturf. Fr. in Berlin Mag. &c. iii. 294.
[473] Latreille denominates this family, as he calls it, Pupivora: if by this he alludes to their devouring the young of insects, from the classical meaning of the word pupa, the term is very proper; but this should be borne in mind, as the majority of readers would imagine it to refer to the pupa state of insects, in which they are not so generally devoured by their parasites.
[474] Not having had it in my power to consult Dalman's work on the Chalcidites of Latreille, referred to by that learned Entomologist in his Familles Naturelles du Règne Animal, I am not able to refer them to their proper genera.
[476] Marsham in Linn. Trans. iii. 26.
[478] Alysia Manducator; and another species allied to Alomyia Debellator, which I have named A. Stercorator.
[479] De Geer, ii. 863.
[480] Ibid. 851-5.
[481] Reaum. ii. 419.
[482] De Geer, i. 196. vi. 14. 24.
[483] Reaum. ii. 440-4.
[484] Linn. Trans. xi. 86.
[485] Kirby's Mon. Ap. Ang. ii. 110-113.
[486] Rossi Fn. Etrusc. Mant.
[487] Preys. Bömisch. Insekt. 59. 61.
[489] Entom. Helvétique, ii. 158.
[490] In the former edition of this work (Vol. IV. p. 392), this tribe is denominated Eupodina; but as this seems too near to M. Latreille's Eupoda, belonging to a different tribe of beetles, we have substituted the above name, which means the same.
[491] One was taken at Aldeburgh in Suffolk by Dr. Crabbe, the celebrated 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.
[492] Latr. Hist. Nat. x. 181.
[493] Linn. Trans. vi. 149. Kirby, Ibid. ix. 42. 23.
[494] The late R. Kittoe, Esq.
[496] Voyages, i. 185.
[497] Percival's Ceylon, 307.
[498] 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. Trans. 1807, p. 243.
[499] St. Pierre, Voy. 72.
[500] Lesser, L. i. 263, note.
[501] Reaum. vi. 400. t. 36-38. Plate XVI. Fig. 5. a.
[502] Thiebaut de Berneaud's Voyage to Elba, p. 31.
[504] Reaumur, ii. 413.
[505] De Geer, i. 533. iii. 361. v. 400. vi. 91.
[506] Rösel, iv. 96.
[507] Thunberg's Travels, ii. 66.
[508] De Geer, vii. 335.
[509] De Geer, vii. 180.
[510] Bingley, ii. 374.
[511] Bingley, iii. 27.
[512] Collinson in Philos. Trans. 1763.
[513] Sparrman, ii. 180.
[514] St. Pierre, Voy. 73.
[515] Reaum. vi. 479-487.
[516] Swamm. Bib. Nat. i. c. 4. 106. b.
[517] In Col. Venable's Experienced Angler, a vast number of insects are enumerated as good baits for fish, under the names of Bob, Cadbait, Cankers, Caterpillars, Palmers, Gentles, Bark-worms, Oak-worms, Colewort-worms, Flag-worms, Green-flies, Ant-flies, Butterflies, Wasps, Hornets, Bees, Humble-bees, Grasshoppers, Dors, Beetles, a great brown fly that lives upon the oak like a Scarabee—(Melolontha vulgaris or Amphimalla solstitialis?) and flies (i. e. may-flies) of various sorts.
[518] Anderson's Recreations in Agricult. &c., iv. 478. Latr. Hist. Nat. xiv. 154.
[519] According to Mr. Heckewelder (Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. iv. 124.) L. Excubitor, called in America the nine-killer, from an idea that it transfixes nine individuals daily, treats in this manner Grasshoppers only; while L. Collurio would seem to restrict itself chiefly to Geotrupes, 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 G. vernalis, which he has often found transfixed, but never G. stercorarius. (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 probably been so placed by this species, L. Excubitor 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.
[520] Stillingfl. Tracts, 175. Linn. Trans. v. 105. noteb.
[521] Bingley, ii. 287-290.
[522] Sparrman, ii. 186.
[523] See above p. 208. noteb. and Bewick's Birds. i. Pref. xxii. 130.
[524] Bib. Nat. i. 126. b.
[525] Travels, i. 110.
[526] Reaum. ii. 408.
[527] Bingley, ii. 374.
[528] White's Selborne, i. 181.
[529] Philos. Mag. xxxix. 107.
[530] Small flies are sometimes found sticking to the glutinous stigma of some of the Orchideæ like birds on a limed twig: (Sprengel Entdecktes Geheimniss, 21—) and ants are not unfrequently 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.
[531] Elements of the Science of Botany, 62.
[532] Smith's Introduction to Botany, 195.
[533] Mouffet, 319.
[534] Smith's Tracts, 165. Kölreuter, Ann. of Bot. ii. 9.
[535] Chr. Conr. Sprengel Entdecktes Geheimniss, &c. Berlin 1793, 4to. quoted in Ann. of Bot. i. 414.
[536] Grundriss der Kräuterkunde, 353. A writer however in the Annual Medical Review (ii. 400.) doubts the accuracy of this fact, on the ground that he could never find C. pennicornis, though A. Clematitis has produced fruit two years at Brompton. Meigen (Dipt. i. 100. e.) places this amongst his doubtful Cecidomyiæ. Fabricius considers it as a Chironomus.
[537] I have frequently observed Dermestes flavescens, Ent. Brit. (Byturus) eat both the petals and stamens of Stellaria Holosteum; and Mordellæ will open the anthers with the securiform joints of their palpi to get at the pollen.
[538] Hasselquist's Travels, 253. Latr. Hist. Nat. xiii. 204.
[539] Willd. Grundriss, 352.
[540] Phil. Trans. xlvi. 536.
[541] Walpole in Clarke's Travels, ii. 187. Even Mr. Boyle speaks with abhorrence of eating raw oysters. Walton's Angler, Life, p. 12.
[542] Baron Humboldt asks (Person. Narr. VI. i. 8. note)—"What are those worms (Loul in Arabic) which Captain Lyon, the fellow traveller of my brave and unfortunate friend Mr. Ritchie, found in the pools of the desert of Fezzan, which served the Arabs for food, and which have the taste of Caviare? Are they not insects' eggs resembling the Aguautle, which I saw sold in the markets of Mexico, and which are collected on the surface of the lakes of Texcuco?" For this latter fact he refers to the Gazeta de Litteratura de Mexico. 1794. iii. No. 26. p. 201. It appears from this note of the illustrious traveller that insects are used as food in their egg as well as their other states.
[543] Herbst and Schönherr call this distinct genus Rhyncophorus; but as this is too near the name of the tribe (Rhyncophora), we have adopted Thunberg's name, altering the termination to distinguish it from Cordyle a genus of Lizards.
[544] Ælian. Hist. l. xiv. c. 13. quoted in Reaum. ii. 343.
[545] Ins. Sur. 48.
[546] Hist. Nat. l. xvii. c. 24.
[547] Wisdom of God, 9th ed. 307. Ray first adopted the opinion here maintained, that the Cossi were the larvæ of some beetle; but afterwards, from observing in the caterpillar of Cossus ligniperda a power of retracting its prolegs within the body, he conjectured that the hexapod larva from Jamaica, (Prionus damicornis?) given him by Sir Hans Sloane, might have the same faculty, and so be the caterpillar of a Bombyx.
[548] Amoreux has collected the different opinions of entomologists on the subject of Pliny's Cossus, which has been supposed the larva of Cordylia Palmarum by Geoffroy; of Lucanus 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 larvæ of Lucanus 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 either to collectors or cooks. Amoreux, 154.
[549] Merian Ins. Sur. 24.
[550] St. Pierre, Voy. 72.
[551] Smeathman, 32.
[552] Reaum. ii. 344.
[553] Phytol. 364.
[554] Diod. Sic. l. iii. c. 29. Strabonis Geog. l. xvi. &c.
[555] Hist. Nat. l. xi. c. 29.
[556] Travels, 232.
[557] Hieroz. ii. l. 14. c. 7.
[558] Sparrman, i. 367.
[559] Rev. ix. 2, 3.
[560] Hieroz. ii. l. 4. c. 7. 492.
[561] Pliny, Hist. Nat. l. vi. c. 30.
[562] Id. ibid.
[563] Jackson's Travels in Marocco, 53. The Rev. R. Sheppard caused some of our large English grasshopper (Acrida viridissima) to be cooked in the way here recommended, only substituting butter for vinegar, and found them excellent.
[564] Travels, 230.
[565] Hom. Il. γ. 150-4.
[566] Arist. Hist. An. l. v. c. 30.
[567] Vide Bochart, Hieroz. ii. l. 4. c. 7. 491.
[568] Hist. Nat. l. xi. c. 26.
[569] P. Collinson in Phil. Trans. 1763. n. x.
[570] One species however has been found in Hampshire in the New Forest. See Samouelle's Entomologist's Useful Compendium, t. v. f. 2.
[571] Reaum. ii. 341.
[572] Ray's Letters, 135.
[573] Sparrman, i. 201.
[574] Sir G. Staunton's Voy. iii. 246.
[575] Phytol. 364.
[576] Sparrman, i. 363.
[577] Captain Green relates that, in the ceded districts in India, they place the branches of trees over the nests, 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.
[578] Smeathman, 31.
[579] Letters written in a Mahratta Camp in 1809.
[580] Knox's Ceylon, 25.
[581] Piso, Ind. l. v. c. 13. 291.
[582] Travels in Sweden, 118.
[583] Ibid.
[584] Smith's Introd. to Bot. 346. Olivier's Travels, i. 139.
[585] Reaum. iii. 416.
[586] Scop. Carniol. 337. See above, p. 229. noteb.
[587] Lat. Hist. Nat. viii. 93.
[588] Sparrman, i. 201.
[589] Voyage à la recherche de la Perouse, ii. 240.
[590] Reaum. ii. 342.
[591] Shaw, Nat. Misc.
[592] Hist. Nat. vii. 227.
[593] Rösel, iv. 257.
[594] Personal Travels, ii. 205.
[595] For this list of remedies, see Lesser, L. ii. 171-3.
[596] Gerbi. The same virtues have been ascribed to Coccinella septempunctata, L.
[597] Latr. Hist. Nat. des Fourmis, 48. 134.
[598] Jackson's Marocco, 83. Some doubt however attaches to this statement, from the circumstance of the figure which Mr. Jackson gives of his beetle (Dibben Fashook) being clearly a mere copy of that of Mr. Bruce's Zimb!
[599] Illiger Mag. i. 256.
[600] Hist. Nat. l. xix. c. 4.
[601] Vol. v. 213.
[602] Carabus, Oliv. Entom. iii. 69. t. iii. f. 26. Compare Philanthropist, ii. 210.
[603] Molina's Chili, i. 174.
[604] Ent. Carniol. 264.
[605] 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.
[606] Molina, i. 171, 285.
[607] Latr. Hist. Nat. x. 143.
[608] Encyclop. Insect. vi. 281. It had better, perhaps, as compound Trivial Names are bad, be called Cynips Scriptorum.
[609] Olivier's Travels in Egypt, &c. ii. 64.
[610] The colour communicated by Kermes with alum, the only mordant formerly employed, is blood red: but Dr. Bancroft found (i. 404.) that with the solution of tin used with cochineal it is capable of imparting a scarlet quite as brilliant as that dye, and perhaps more permanent. At the same time, however, as ten or twelve pounds contain only as much colouring matter as one of cochineal, the latter at its ordinary price is the cheapest.
[611] Bochart, Hierozoic. ii. l. iv. c. 27. Beckmann's History of Inventions, Engl. Trans. ii. 171-205. Brancroft on permanent Colours. i. 393. See also Parkhurst's Heb. Lexicon under תלע and שנה.
[612] Rai. Hist. Plant. i. 401.
[613] Bancroft, i. 401.
[614] Bancroft, i. 413. Reaum. iv. 88.
[615] Humboldt's Political Essay on New Spain, iii. 72-9.
[616] Ibid. iii. 64.—Dr. Bancroft estimates the present annual consumption of cochineal in Great Britain at about 750 bags, or 150,000 lbs.—worth at the present price 375,000l.
[617] Lesser, L. ii. 165.
[618] Bancroft on permanent Colours, ii. 20. 49.
[619] Reaum. iii. Preface, xxxi.
[620] Lach. Lapp. i. 258.
[621] Trans. of the Soc. of Arts, xxiii. 411.
[622] Reaum. iii. 95.
[623] Political Essay, iii. 62.
[624] Voyage dans l'Amer. Merid. i. 162.
[625] Grosier's China, i. 439.
[626] Quoted in Southey's Thalaba, ii. 166.
[627] Embassy to China, i. 400.
[628] Phil. Trans. 1794. xxi.
[629] Voyage dans l'Amer. Merid. i. 164.
[630] Molina's Chili, i. 174.
[631] Communications to the Board of Agricult. vii. 286.
[632] Mills on Bees, 77.
[633] Latr. in Humboldt and Bonpland, Recueil d'Observ. de Zoologie, &c. (Paris, 1805) 300.
[634] Hill in Swammerdam, i. 181, note.
[635] Latr. ubi supr. 300.
[636] Knox's Ceylon, 25.
[637] Voy. dans l'Amer. Merid. i. 162.
[638] M. Latreille appears to have described this bee under the name of Apis unicolor. Mém. sur les Abeilles, 8. 39.
[639] Latr. Hist. Nat. xiv. 20.
[640] Latr. in Humboldt and Bonpland, Recueil, &c. 302.
[641] Vorlesungen, 324. I have read somewhere, but neglecting to make a memorandum I cannot refer to the author, (Latreille?) that a species of wasp in South America collects and stores up honey.
[642] Colebrook in Asiatic Researches, v. 61.
[643] Milton's Comus.
[644] Hist. Animal. l. v. c. 19. A French gentleman, M. Vaucanson, has invented a mill for unwinding the cocoons of the silkworm. Scott's Visit to Paris, 4th ed. 304.
[645] Pausanias, quoted by Goldsmith, vi. 80.
[646] Pliny Hist. Nat. l. xi. c. 22.
[647] Aristot. ubi supr. He does not expressly say the pupa, but this we must suppose. The larva he means could not be the common silk-worm, since he describes it as large, and having as it were horns.
[648] vii. 33-48. Compare Lord Valentia's Travels, i. 78.
[649] xxiii. 235.
[650] Vorlesungen, 325.
[651] Latr. Hist. Nat. xiv. 150. Three modern species of Saturnia were formerly considered as varieties only, and distinguished by the trivial name of Pavonia major, media, and minor; these are now called S. Pyri, Spini, and Carpini. Ochsenh.
[652] Pullein in Phil. Trans. 1759. 54.
[653] Annals of Botany, ii. 104.
[654] Political Essay on N. Spain, iii. 59.
[655] Voyage dans l'Amer. Merid. i. 212. It may here be observed as a benefit derived by the higher 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 fifth of its ordinary length. Nouv. Dict. d'Hist. Nat. ii. 280.
[656] American Phil. Trans. v. 325.
[657] Anderson's Recreations in Agriculture, &c. iv. 399.
[659] Clark in Linn. Trans. iii. 304.
[660] Bonnet, ii. 344.
[661] The Rev. Dr. Sutton of Norwich made similar observations upon the proceedings of this insect in his garden for two successive seasons.
[662] Rai. Hist. Ins. 254.
[663] Reaum. vi. 252.
[664] By this term I would distinguish the tribe of Fossores of Latreille, which the French call Wasp-Ichneumons, and which form the Linnean genus Sphex, divisible into several families as Sphecidæ, Pompilidæ, Bembecidæ, &c.
[665] Mr. W. S. MacLeay in his very remarkable and learned work (Horæ Entomologicæ) has very properly restored its name to the true Scarabæus of the ancients, which gives its name to this group.
[666] Mouffet, 153.
[667] J. Pierii Valeriani Hieroglyphica, 93-5. Mouffet, 156.
[668] Travels, ii. 306. Compare M. Latreille's learned Memoir entitled Des Insectes peints ou sculptes sur les Monumens antiques de l'Egypte. Ann. du Mus. 1819.
[669] Gleditsch Physic. Bot. Oecon. Abhandl. iii. 200-227.
[670] Natural Theology, 497.
[671] Latreille denominates this tribe Securifera; but as the tool of these insects resembles a saw and not a hatchet, we have ventured to change it to Serrifera, which is more appropriate.
[672] Prof. Peck's Nat. Hist. of the Slug-worm, t. 12. f. 12-14. Plate XV. Fig. 21.
[673] Linn. Trans. iii. 23.
[674] Apis. **. c. 2. γ. K.
[676] See Kirby in Linn. Trans. v. 254. t. 12. f. 15.
[678] Bonnet, ix. 398.
[679] liii. 37. Pelopæus spirifex?
[680] Reaum. vi. 269.
[681] De Geer, iii. 262.
[682] De Geer, iii. 548.
[683] Bonnet, ii. 435.
[684] De Geer, vii. 194.
[685] De Geer, vii. 268.
[686] Huber, 69.
[687] De Geer, ii. 1099.
[688] Gould, 37.
[689] Huber, 74.
[690] Huber, 78.
[691] The Russian shepherds ingeniously avail themselves of the attachment of ants to their young, for obtaining with little trouble a collection of the pupæ, which they sell as a dainty food for nightingales. They scatter an ants' nest upon a dry plot of ground, surrounded with a shallow trench of water, and place on one side of it a few fir branches. Under these the ants, having no other alternative, carefully arrange all their pupæ, and in an hour or two the shepherd finds a large heap clean and ready for market. Anderson's Recreations in Agriculture, &c. iv. 158.
[692] Huber, 83.
[693] Ibid. 93.
[695] Huber, 110.
[696] Huber, 109.—Gould had, long before Huber, observed that female ants cast their wings, pp. 59, 62, 64. I have frequently observed them, sometimes with only one wing, at others with only fragments of the wings; and again, at others they were so completely pulled off, that it could not be known that they formerly had them, only by the sockets in which they were inserted.
[697] Huber, 93.
[698] See Willughby in Rai. Hist. Ins. 251. and Reaum.
[699] Reaum. vi. 174.
[700] It is not unlikely that it may undergo some other alteration in the bee's stomach, which may possibly secrete some peculiar substance, as John Hunter discovered that the crop of the pigeon does.
[701] 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 Humming-bee or Booming-bee.
[702] Linn. Trans. vi. 247 &c.
[703] Ephem. German. An. xii. Obs. 58. Rai. Hist. Ins. 261.
[704] Linn. Trans. xi. 11. t. 3. f. 5-7.
[705] De Geer, iv. 210.
[706] Brahm, Insekten Kalender, i. 190.
[707] Reaum. iv. 280.
[708] De Geer, vi. 112.
[709] Reaum. vi. 271.
[710] Entomologische Bemerkungen (Braunschweig 1799), p. 6.
[711] Latreille, Obs. sur les Hymenoptères. Ann. de Mus. xiv. 412.
[712] Reaum. iii. 257.
[713] Ibid. iii. 277.
[714] Ibid. ii. 324.
[715] For an instance in which an insect, usually subsisting upon animal food, derived nutriment from a mineral substance, see Philos. Magaz. &c. for January 1823. 2—.
[716] Lesser, L. i. 259.
[717] x. 458.
[718] Dictionnaire Physique.
[719] In the controversy between the commentators on Shakespeare, as to whether shard[720] means wing-cases, dung, or a fragment of earthenware, and whether born should be spelled with or without the e, it might have thrown some weight into the scale of those who contend for the orthography adopted above, and that the meaning of shard in this place is dung, if they had been aware that the beetle (Geotrupes stercorarius) is actually born amongst dung, and no where else; 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 (Melolontha vulgaris), 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 year. S.
[720] Sharn is the common name of cow-dung in the North: therefore Shakespeare probably wrote sharn-born. Mr. MacLeay.
[721] De Geer, vii. 123.
[722] Id. ibid. 126.
[723] Plate VI. Fig. 4, 5. 10, 11. 24-26.
[724] For a full description of this instrument see Reaum. i. 125, &c. Plate VI. Fig. 13.
[725] The mode, however, in which this is effected in all insects furnished with a proboscis, can scarcely be by suction, strictly so called, or the abstraction of air, since the air-vessels of insects do not communicate with their mouths: it is more probably performed in part by capillary attraction; and, as Lamarck has suggested, (Syst. des Anim. sans Vertèbres, p. 193.) in part by a succession of undulations and contractions of the sides of the organ.