INSECT VARIETY. 47 



ployed when frightened or as a defence. He tells us that in the 

 neighbourhood of Para every tree was tenanted by Cicadae^ the 

 reedy notes of which produce that loud, jarring, insect-music 

 which is the general accompaniment of a woodland ramble in a 

 hot climate. ^' One species was very handsome, having wings 

 adorned with patches of bright green and scarlet. It was very 

 common, sometimes three or four tenanting a single tree, clinging 

 as usual to the branches. On approaching a tree thus peopled, 

 a number of little jets of a clear liquid would be seen squirted 

 from aloft. I have often received the well-directed discharge 

 full in my face ; but the liquid is harmless, having a sweetish 

 taste, and is ejected by the insect from the anus.''^ Grasshojipers 

 and Leaf-crickets, on handling, drop brown saliva or emit scent 

 from small tubular anal glands as the crickets and cockroaches ; 

 and among the net- veined insects, or Neuroptera, the duller of the 

 Lace- winged Flies, that flutters about blighted garden apple-trees, 

 is especially offensive, emitting the effluvia of odour with a flipping 

 movement of the abdomen when retained by its ample wings. 

 Some butterflies and the Tiger Moths exude clear white or yellow 

 liquid on seizure at the prothorax ; others, as the Death^s Head, 

 diffuse scents from expansile pencils of hair or " fans/^ and most 

 of this order, with certain flies, drop solvent red, orange, or 

 white saliva on emerging from the cocoon; a circumstance in 

 the case of the Nettle Tortoiseshells that has given rise to 

 disastrous blood prodigies in some parts of the Continent. 

 Lastly, a small Bumble I retained at close quarters with a 

 House Spider expired in a quarter of an hour — as I conclude, 

 from fright, or possibly poisonous exhalation (Plate I., Fig. 7). 



Fear dawning on the nervous system as the experience of 

 pain, and yielding in reaction to desire, merges to anger, 

 prompting rivalry, and producing struggles for existence or 

 effecting a distribution of the species. Simple anger insects, 

 both mandibulate and haustellate, manifest when provoked by 

 touch. Beetles and Orthoptera seek to assail Avith their jaws, 

 and the warlike bees, turning on their backs and extending the 

 hinder pairs of legs, threaten with their sting or ovipositor. 

 Bugs, often incautiously handled when gathering fruit or 

 flowers, prick little less sharply with their needle-like rostrums. 

 Rivalry again, essentially a masculine attribute, appears also in 



