364 MOTIONS OF INSECTS. 



eggs in a secure situation. All, however, were not com- 

 mitted to the same burrow ; for she every now and then 

 shifted her station, but not more than an inch from wliere 

 she bored last. While she was thus engaged, I observed 

 her male companion suspended by one of his legs on a 

 twig, not far from her. The common turf-boring crane- 

 fly {T. oleraced), when engaged in laying eggs, moves 

 over the grass with her body in a vertical position, by 

 the help — her four anterior legs being in the air — of 

 her two posterior ones, and the end of her abdomen, 

 which performs the office of anotlier. Whether in boring, 

 like T. variegata, she turns half round and back, does 

 not appear from Reaumur's account ^. 



I now come to motions whose object seems to be sport 

 and amusement rather than locomotion. They may be 

 considered as of three kinds — hovering — gyrations — and 

 dancing. 



You have often in the woods and other places seen 

 flies suspended as it were in the air, their wings all the 

 while moving so rapidly as to.be almost invisible. This 

 hovering, which seems peculiar to the aphidivorous flies, 

 has been also noticed by De Geer ^. I have frequently 

 amused myself with watching them ; but when I have 

 endeavoured to entrap them with my forceps, they have 

 immediately shifted their quarters, and resumed their 

 amusement elsewhere. The most remarkable insects in 

 this respect are the sphinxes, and from this they doubt- 

 less took their name of haiok-moths. When they unfold 

 their long tongue, and wipe its sweets from any nectari- 

 ferous flower, they always keep upon the wing, sus- 

 pending themselves over it till they have exhausted them, 

 " V. 20—. " vi. 104. 



