446 MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 



near Leuk in the Valais in Switzerland, in which the thermometer stood 

 at 205°, transparent larvae, probably of gnats, or some such insect. — Lord 

 Bute also, in a letter to my late revered friend, the Rev. William Jones 

 of Nayland, imparts a similar observation made by his Lordship at the 

 batiis of Abano, near the Euganian mountains, on the borders of the Pa- 

 duan states. They are strong, sulphureous, boiling springs, oozing out of 

 a rocky eminence in great numbers, and spreading over an acre of the 

 top of a gentle hill. In the midst of these boiling springs, within three 

 feet of five or six of them, rises a tepid one about blood warm. But the 

 most extraordinary circumstance which he relates is, that not only confer- 

 vas were found in the boiling springs, but numbers of small black beetles, 

 that died upon being taken out and plunged into cold water.^ — And once, 

 having taken in the hot dung of my cucumber-bed a small beetle (Syn- 

 chita Jaglandis), I immersed it in boiling water ; and after keeping it 

 submerged a sufficient time, as I thought, to destroy it, upon taking it 

 out, and laying it to dry, it soon began to move and walk. Its native 

 station being of so high a temperature. Providence has fitted it for it, by 

 giving it extraordinary powers of sustaining heat. Other insects are as 

 remarkable for bearing any degree of cold. Some gnats that De Geer 

 observed, survived after the water in which they were was frozen into a 

 mass of ice : and Reaumur relates many similar instances.^ 



The last passive means of defence that I mentioned, was the multipli- 

 cation of insects. Some species, the Aphides for instance, and the Grass- 

 hoppers and Locusts, have such an infinite host of enemies, that were it 

 not for their numbers the race would soon be annihilated. — But as passive 

 means of defence have detained us sufficiently long, it is enough to have 

 touched upon this head. Let us then now proceed to such as may be 

 called active ; in which the volition of the animal bears some part. 



II. The active means of defence, which tend to secure insects from 

 injury or attack, are much more numerous and diversified than the passive ; 

 and also more interesting, since they depend, more or less, upon the efforts 

 and industry of these creatures themselves. When urged by danger, they 

 endeavor to repel it, either by having recourse to certain attitudes or 

 motions ; producing particular noises ; emitting disagreeable scents or 

 fluids ; employing their limbs, or weapons, and valor ; concealing them- 

 selves in various ways, or by counteracting the designs and attacks of 

 their enemies by contrivances that require ingenuity and skill. 



The attitudes which insects assume for this purpose are various. Some 

 are purely imitative, as in many instances detailed above. I possess a 

 diminutive rove-beetle (^Aleochara complicans) K. Ms.), to which my 

 attention was attracted as a very minute, shining, round black pebble. 

 This successful imitation was produced by folding its head under its 

 breast, and turning up its abdomen over its elytra ; so that the most 

 piercing and discriminating eye would never have discovered it to be 

 an insect. I have observed that a carrion beetle (^Silpha thoracica) when 

 alarmed has recourse to a similar manceuvre. Its orange-colored thorax, 



' J. Mason Good's Anniversary Oration, delivered March 8, 1808, before the Medical Society 

 of London, p. 31. 

 2 De Geer, vi. 355. ; comp. 320., and Reaum. ii. 111—147. 



