522 SEASONS OF INSECTS. 
in collecting the honey from those plants. Here you 
may take some of the rarer Chrysida?, Crabronida, Cer- 
cerides, &c, and occasionally even Coleoptcra. The last 
insect-season may be dated from the general flowering 
of the thistle tribe. When these are in blossom is the 
best time of all to collect the humble-bees (Bombus*), the 
leaf-cutter bees (Megachile b ), and many other Apiaries, 
which alone by their long tongues can imbibe the honey 
and collect the pollen of these flowers. The male hum- 
ble-bees frequent them to the last, and often seem as if 
they were intoxicated with their sweets. 
But perhaps you may prefer considering the whole 
summer appearance of insects as divided into three prin- 
cipal seasons. This may thus be done. Their vernal 
season may commence Florente Caprea, and end Florente 
Oxyacantha ; their summer, Florente Oxyacantha and Flo- 
rentibus Umbellatis; their autumn, Florentibus Umbellatis 
and Florente Car duo. In thejirst, the number of insects 
will be daily increasing ,• in the second (which is the har- 
vest of the Entomologist, when his eyes and his hands 
ought to be every where), they will reach their utmost 
complement ,• and in the third, they will be gradually de- 
creasing in number, till they generally die, or go into 
winter-quarters. At this time many minute Diptera and 
Ichneumons take shelter from the weather in the windows 
of our apartments. These seasons will not always exactly 
correspond with our usual reckoning, and take place at 
the same time; since, being regulated by our varying tem- 
perature, they will be sometimes sooner and sometimes 
later, sometimes longer and sometimes shorter. Though 
I have not named a brumal season, because insects are in 
* Apis * *. e. 2. K. b Apis * *. c. 2. «. K. 
