MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 257 



as the particulars and issue of this famous duel are not 

 given, I can only mention the circumstance, and con- 

 jecture that the spider was victorious ^ ! ! ! Terrible as 

 is the dragon-fly to the insect world in general, putting 

 to flight and devouring whole hosts of butterflies, may- 

 flies, and others of its tribes, it instills no terror into 

 the stout heart of the scorpion-fly (Panorpa communis^ 

 Li.) J though much its inferior in size and strength. Ly- 

 onet saw one attack a dragon-fly of ten times its own 

 bigness, bring it to the ground, pierce it repeatedly 

 w ith its proboscis ; and had he not by his eagerness 

 parted them, he doubts not it would have destroyed this 

 tyrant of the insect creation **. 



When the deatli's-head hawk-moth was introduced 

 by Huber into a nest of humble-bees, they were not 

 aflfected by it, like the hive-bees, but attacked it and 

 drove it out of their nest, and in one instance their 

 stings proved fatal to it ". — A black beetle, probably a 

 Ilarpalus or Carabus, devours the eggs of the mole- 

 cricket, or Grj/UoLalpa . To defend them, the female 

 places herself at the entrance of the nest — which is a 

 neatly smoothed and rounded chamber protected by 

 labyrinths, ditches, and ramparts— and whenever the 

 beetle attempts to seize its prey, she catches it and 

 bites it asunder''. 



1 know nothing more astonishing than the wonder- 

 ful muscular strength of insects, which in proportion 

 to their size exceeds that of any other class of animals, 

 and is likewise to be reckoned amongst their means of 



* Dr. Long in Ray's Letters, 370. '" Lesser /.. i. 26.^. Note +. 



" Huber, Nuuv. Obs. ii. 301 — ■ * Bingley, .'inlnud Biogr. iii. 1st Kd. 

 24T— White, Nat. Uist. ii. 83. 



vol.. ir. s 



