FOOD OF INSECTS. 391 



countable whence the juices of their body are derived. 

 The grub of an Anobium (Ptinus, L.) will feed for 

 months upon a chair that has been baking- before the 

 fire for half a century, and from which even the che- 

 mist's retort could scarcely extract a drop of moisture; 

 and will yet have its body as well filled with fluids as 

 that of a leaf-fed caterpillar. 



By far the greater part of insects always feed them- 

 selves. The young- however of those which live in so- 

 cieties, as the hive- and humble-bees, wasps, ants, &c. 

 are fed by the older inhabitants of the community, 

 which also frequently feed eacli other. Many of these 

 last insects are distinguished from the majority of their 

 race, which live from day to day and take no thought 

 for the morrow, by the circumstance of storing up 

 food. Of those which feed themselves, the larger 

 proportion have imposed upon them the task of pro- 

 viding for their own wants ; but the tribe of Spheges, 

 wild bees, and some others, are furnished in the larva 

 state by the parent insect with a supply of food suf- 

 ficient for their consumption until they have attained 

 matui'ity. 



As to their time of feeding, insects may be divided 

 into three great classes : the day-feeders, the night- 

 feeders, and those which feed indifferently at all times. 

 You have been apt to think, I dare say, that when the 

 sun's warmer beams have waked the insect youth, and 

 *' Ten thousand forms, ten thousand different tribes, 

 People the blaze," 

 you see before you the whole insect world. You are 

 not aware that a host as numerous shun the glare of 

 day, and, like the votaries of fashion, rise not from their 



