234 



Chapter X. 



SINGULARITIES IN PAIRING. 



It may be perceived from some of the preceding 

 details, that insects differ very considerably from the 

 larger animals in their modes of pairing ; but there 

 are several species in which the peculiarities are much 

 more remarkable. In the case of moths we have 

 seen the extraordinary phenomenon of life itself being 

 extended several weeks beyond its natural period 

 when a mate could not be met with ; and in butter- 

 flies it is probably extended to several months ; in the 

 case of those females (Vanessa lo, V. Urticce^ Gone- 

 pteryx Rhamni, &c.) which are hatched late in the 

 autumn and live till they meet with a mate in the 

 ensuing spring ; while, had they been hatched a 

 month or two earlier, and had left a progeny to 

 supply their place, they would have infallibly died. 



PAIRING OF APHIDES. 



The earlier naturalists observing that aphides 

 were always found where ants abound, concluded, 

 without further investigation, that the ants shed upon 

 the leaves of plants a sort of plastic humour, from 

 which the aphides were generated*, on the same 

 principles as they erroneously imagined flies to be 

 produced from dead carcasses f. But miraculous as 

 this would have been had it been the case, it is 

 perhaps surpassed by the actual facts which have 

 been ascertained by subsequent observations con- 



* Godart, ii. Exp. 22. 

 t See Insect Transformationsj chap. i. 



