390 FOOD OF INSECTS. 



stinguish tlie animal and vegetable kingdoms, is cer« 

 tainly not inadmissible ; for, though we might not be 

 inclined to give much weight to Father Paulian's his" 

 tory of a flint-cater who digested flints and stone % the 

 testimony of Humboldt seems to prove that the human 

 race is capable of drawing nutriment from earth, which, 

 if the odious Ottomaques can digest and assimilate, 

 may doubtless afford support to the larvae of Ephe- 

 merae. Yet after all it is perhaps more probable that 

 these insects feed on the decaying vegetable matter in- 

 termixed with the earth in Avhich tliey reside, from 

 which after being swallowed it is extracted by the ac- 

 tion of the stomach : like the sand that, from being 

 found in a similar situation, Borelli erroneously sup- 

 posed to be the food of many Tcstacea, though in fact 

 a mere extraneous substance. 



The majority of insects, either imbibing their food 

 in a liquid state, or feeding on succulent substances, 

 require no aqueous fluid for diluting it. Water, how- 

 ever, is essential to bees, ants, and some other tribes, 

 which drink it with avidity ; as well as in warm climates 

 to many JLepidopfera, which are there chiefly taken in 

 court yards, near the margins of drains, &c. Even 

 some larvEB which feed upon juidy leaves have been 

 observed to swallow drops of dew ; and one of them 

 ( Bomb^jc potatoria), M'h'ich (according to Goedart) after 

 drinking lifts up its head like a hen, has received its 

 name from tlris circumstance. That it is not the mere 

 want of succulency in the food which induces the ne- 

 cessity of drink, is plain from those larvae which live 

 entirely on substances so dry that it is almost unac=' 



' JDiclionnaire Pliysique, 



