5 On the Study of Nature and Science, 



Having been balked in my endeavours to raise and train 

 some young currant bushes in a particular manner, from their 

 failing to grow so luxuriantly as I had reason to expect from 

 the pains I had taken to prepare the soil, &c., I was led to a 

 narrow examination of their exterior, in search of the cause ; 

 and perceiving some wounds in the branches^ that had much the 

 appearance of being made by the entrance of small shot, I cut 

 off a branch, when I found that the medulla or pith was de- 

 stroyed, and its place converted into a commodious apartment 

 and passage for some insects. I traced it for several inches, 

 and found it was occupied by a grub or maggot ; and knowing 

 this must be the larva of some fly or moth, I determined on 

 securing some of them at the proper season, to see the result 

 of their transformations. Having obtained some in a chrysalis 

 state, I placed them under a glass ; when, after some weeks, 

 one of them produced a beautiful and most singularly formed 

 insect, which appeared to be neither a fly nor a moth, but some- 

 tliing between both, (^geri« ripulaeformis : see Samouelle's 

 Ent. Useful Compend., 397.) I enclose you the insect ; but, 

 fearing it may be destroyed in its journey, I annex a rough 

 sketch. {Jig, I,) The colour of the bands 

 ^ / of the body, and the veins of the wings, is a 



black purple, and these, with the sides, legs, &c., 

 are edged with gold ; the fan at the posterior, 

 which is something like the tail of a lobster, 

 is formed of feathers, laid one over another, 

 the same as on the rump of a bird ; the wings lie on its back, 

 much in the same position as those of a common fly. The 

 exhibition and description of this fly, however, can only serve 

 as an object of admiration. The means of preventing its mis- 

 chievous ravages must be, to cut off* the branches, and, tracing 

 it to its lodgment, to destroy it. 



I will also describe what appeared to me to be a singular 

 instance in the working of an insect, and which seems to prove 

 that their powers of design and execution, in the formation of 

 their apartments for lodging and fostering their young, are 

 something more than instinctive. Accidentally standing and 

 musing under a shed erected over a small rivulet in Wilt- 

 shire, I observed a common wasp enter, afiix itself to the roof, 

 and set about attaching something to one of the rafters, much 

 in the same manner as martens do in building their nests ; 

 and as I had always understood that those wasps made their 

 nests under ground, curiosity led me to notice its operations, 

 and the progress it made daily, for some weeks. It proceeded 

 to form a cell of the shape and size of an acorn, depending, 

 vith an entrance at the lower extremity. As soon as this was 



