TASTE IN INSECTS. 27 



while they would likewise fare worse after they had 

 effected a lodgment * ; but whether this selection is 

 made throug-h the medium of taste, smell, touch, or 

 vision^ we have no means of ascertaining. 



The midge, however, is by no means peculiar in 

 its ajiparent capriciousness of taste ; for the same 

 preference and antipathy is exhibited by most of the 

 other blood-sucking insects. Of two individuals, for 

 example, who had been together for a whole day 

 on a nutting expedition, and who slept in the same 

 bed-chamber, next morning one was covered all over 

 with red blotches from the attacks of the harvest- 

 bug (heptus autumnalis, Latr.), while the other 

 was quite untouched t- Stewart says that this mite 

 chiefly attacks women and children I- 



Harvest-bug (^Leptus autumnalis), greatly magnified. 



A species of this family (Acarina), probably the 

 red tick (Pedicuhis coccineus, Scopoli), or a mite 

 (Leptus Pkalangii), described by De Geer, appears 

 to be much more indiscriminate in its tastes; for 



* Insect Architecture, page 412. 

 t J. R. X Elements, ii. 324. 



D 2 



