20 Centrbtus Bennetii and Hardwickil 



Let it be remembered, that it is the earliest and the latest 

 appearance of the several species of iiTirundo that are recorded 

 in the Table above, not that of the 7nain body of them. Of the 

 first three species, viz. swallow, marten, and sand marten, the 

 general flight does not usually appear till about the end^ of 

 April or beginning of May, and retires about the beginning 

 of October. Of the swifts the general flight may be stated 

 as arriving about the middle of May, and departing early in 

 August. Yours, &c. 



JliesleT/ Rectory, Jug, 6. W. T. Bree. 



Art. V. An Outline and Description of Centrbtus Bennetii and 

 Hardwickil, By the Rev. William Kirby, M. A. F. R. S. 

 L. S. &c. 



Sir, 

 There are no tribes of animals, with the exception, per- 

 haps, of fishes, in which so much singularity and eccentricity 

 of form are observable, as in that of insects ; of this, examples 

 may be produced from almost every order, but in none is this 

 sportiveness more conspicuous than in the homopterous sec- 

 tion of the Hemiptera, especially in Fabricius's genus Cen- 

 trotus. Having received two insects that remarkably verify 

 this observation, from two very distant quarters of the globe, 

 one from General Hardwicke, well known for the spirit and. 

 talent with which he has collected and illustrated zoological 

 subjects in the East, and the other from Edward Bennet, 

 Esq., of Rougham Hall, in Suffolk, who collected insects with 

 singular assiduity in the West, at Choco, in Colombia, I 

 thought an outline and description of such strange forms 

 might amuse and interest some of your readers. I have added 

 to them four other figures of insects of the same genus, copied 

 from StolVs Cigales, a work in few hands, which are all calcu- 

 lated to excite astonishment in the mind of the beholder, who, 

 at first, would be disposed to doubt the existence of creatures 

 armed in so extraordinary and grotesque a manner. The only 

 conjecture one can form, with regard to the use of the appa- 

 ratus that distinguishes them, is that it is designed to deceive 

 their enemies, the birds, who may thus often be led to mistake 

 them for part of the spray of the tree or shrub on which they 

 feed. 



Ce7iirdtus Bennetii, {Jig, 5, a) — Body not four lines 

 long, of a lurid colour, obscure ; rather hairy, hairs erect ; 

 thorax thickly punctate, with a compressed reflexed horn 



