$66 Insect Miscellanies. 



being voracious feeders, will often dart down from a considerable height 

 upon a flower beneath their track, even when their leading object seemed 

 to be very different from searching for food. This struck us more par- 

 ticularly, in a narrow garden at Havre de Grace, enclosed with stone 

 walls 15 ft. high ; for no butterfly, in passing over it, omitted to descend, 

 for the purpose of visiting the blossoms of an alpine bluebottle ( Centaur ea 

 monlana), whose smell, however, to our organs, is far from being powerful 

 enough to be perceived at the distance of 1 ft., much less at 15 or 20 ft., 

 as it must have been by the butterflies ; for we often saw the painted lady 

 (Cynthia cardui) and other high-flying species alight there." 



This reminds me of a fact which I recollect to have re- 

 peatedly witnessed, and to have been much struck with, when 

 a boy at school. Our playground, in shape a parallelogram, 

 or oblong square, was enclosed with stone walls 15 or 16 ft. 

 high ; adjoining the playground, on one side was a garden, 

 on the other the schoolhouse and premises, beyond which 

 lay another garden. The boys were frequently in the habit, 

 after they had finished their breakfast, of throwing down the 

 basins in which it had been served, and heedlessly leaving them 

 on the ground ; so that it was no uncommon thing to see the 

 playground studded in various parts with some half score or 

 more of such conspicuous articles of white crockery. These 

 basins, I used to observe, invariably attracted the attention 

 of the common white butterflies (Pontic brassicae, rapse, and 

 napi), which, in passing over the wall from the adjoining 

 garden, towards the opposite one, seldom omitted to dart 

 down upon them, mistaking them, probably, for so many 

 magnificent and full-blown flowers. In this instance, the 

 butterflies, I conceive, must undoubtedly have been attracted 

 to the object by the sight, and not, as Professor Rennie sup- 

 poses they were, by the scent, in the case of the alpine blue- 

 bottle, in the garden at Havre de Grace. 



Many insects have the power of emitting, both in the larva 

 and perfect state, a strong and disagreeable scent ; for the 

 purpose, as it is supposed, of self-defence. The efiluvia of 

 the wood ants, when their hillocks are disturbed, affects the 

 olfactory organs almost as powerfully as hartshorn. Several 

 species of Phryganea, and, still more, several Hemerobii, have 

 an excessively offensive odour.* Professor Rennie observes 

 (p. 53.), from Kirby and Spence, that " some bees (Andrenidse) 

 have a strong smell of garlic, which may probably be dis- 

 agreeable to their various enemies." Is it generally known 

 that one species of the bee family, ikfelitta fulva Kirby, 

 which visits our gardens in the spring, when the gooseberries 

 and currants are in bloom, has a powerful and agreeable 



* Hence Petiver designates one species " Perla minima, merdam olens." 

 [The smallest Perla, smelling of dung.] 



