MOTIONS OF INSECTS. 365 



when they fly away to another. The species called by 

 collectors the humming-bh'd (Macroglossa Stellatariim), 

 and by some persons mistaken for a real one, is remark- 

 able for this, and the motion of its wings is inconceiv- 

 ably rapid ^. 



The gyrations of insects take place either when they 

 are reposing, or when they are flying or swimming. — - 

 I was once much diverted by observing the actions of a 

 minute moth upon a leaf on which it was stationed. 

 Making its head the centre of its revolutions, it turned 

 round and round with considerable rapidity, as if it 

 had the vertigo, for some time. I did not, however, 

 succeed in my attempts to take it. — Scaliger noticed a 

 similar motion in the book-crab {Clielifcr cancroidesf . 



Reaumur describes in a very interesting and lively 

 way the gyrations of the Ephemerae before noticed '^, 

 round a lighted flambeau. It is singular, says he, that 

 moths which fly only in the night, and shun the day, 

 should be precisely those that come to seek the light in 

 our apartments. It is still more extraordinary that these 

 Ephemerae — which appearing after sunset, and dying 

 before sun-rise, are destined never to behold the light of 

 that orb — should have so strong an inclination for any 

 luminous object. To hold a flambeau when they ap- 

 peared was no very pleasant office ; for he who filled it, 

 in a few seconds had his dress covered with the insects, 

 which rushed from all quarters to him. The light of 

 the flambeau exhibited a spectacle which enchanted 

 every one that beheld it. All that were present, even 



' Rai. Hisl. Ins. 133. 1 . " Lesser, L. i. 248, note 22. 



' Vol. I. 282—. 



