SS6 fOOD OF INSECTS, 



which myriads of victims are incessantly hurried into 

 their destructive maw. 



But not only animals themselves, almost every ani- 

 mal substance that can be named is the appropriate food 

 of some insect. Multitudes find a delicious nutriment 

 in excrements of various kinds. Matters apparently 

 So indigestible as hair, wool, and leather, are the sole 

 food of many moths in the larva state {Tinea tapetzella, 

 pelUonella, &c.). Even feathers are not rejected by 

 others ; and the grub of a beetle (Bj/rrhus Musceo- 

 I'lini, L.), with powers of stomach which the dyspeptic 

 sufferer may envy, will live luxuriously upon horn''. 



For the most part, insects feeding upon animal sub- 

 stances will not touch vegetables, and vice versa. You 

 must not however take the rule without exceptions. 

 Many caterpillars (as those of Noclita der^asa, Delphi- 

 nii, &c.) though plants are their proper food, will oc- 

 casionally devour other caterpillars, and sometimes 

 even their own species. The large green grass-hopper 

 (Locusfa vi)'idissi)7ia, ¥.), and probably others of the 

 order, will eat smaller insects as well as its usual ve- 

 getable food''; and so also will the larvas of manj 

 Phryganece. Plinus rubellus, Ent. Brit., which ordina- 

 rily feeds upon wood, was, as I before mentioned, once 

 found by Mr. Sheppard in great abundance living upon 

 the dried Cantharides {Lytta vesicatoria) of the shops. 

 On the other hand, Necrophorus mortuorum^ which 

 subsists on carcases, and many other carnivorous spe- 

 cies, will make a hearty meal of a putrid fungus ; Pti- 

 nusfur devours indifferently dried birds or plants, not 



" Dc Gcer, iv. 2iP. " Eralun Inscktai KuhnJer, I 190. 



