390 THE MARITIME BRISTLE-TAIL, 



leaped away whenever I attempted to lay hands on 

 them. With some difficulty I succeeded in taking 

 two or three, by slapping my hand suddenly down 

 upon them, and crushing them. Having brought 

 home my captures in that improvised collecting-box, 

 that every entomologist finds need now and then to 

 resort to, — a scrap of paper screwed up at both ends, 

 — I found that they were the same little active crea- 

 tures that I had met with before, Machilis maritima. 



I visited the spot the next day, but could not dis- 

 cover a single individual : at the approach of night, 

 however, they came out as before by hundreds. I 

 suspected therefore that night was the proper season 

 of activity for these insects ; and that during the day 

 they would probably be found secreted in the nume- 

 rous fissures, with which this slaty rock abounds. 



Accordingly I took an early opportunity of examin- 

 ing the place, furnished with a hammer and chisel. 

 It was as I anticipated. On my detaching a loose 

 fragment of the slate, I disturbed about a score of the 

 insects, varying in size, — the old parents shining in 

 all the lustrous radiance of their scaly coats, and their 

 hopeful family of all ages clustering round them in 

 duller raiment. A large heap of ejecta showed that 

 the fissure had been their regular and constant dwel- 

 ling. Not that the place however was confined to 

 them ; for several of the amphibious marine Woodlice 

 (Lygia oceanica) were hiding there, and there were 

 also some half-dozen of the tailed and horned pu- 

 pa-cases of a two-winged fly, in one of which I 

 found the perfect insect nearly ready for expulsion, 

 but dead and dry. They were of the species named 



