262 MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 



is unbent and in the same direction with it^. In some 

 species the excrement is not so disgusting as you may 

 suppose, being formed into fine branching filaments. 

 This is the case with C. maculata, L."'. — In the cognate 

 genus Imatidium^ the larvae also are merdigerous ; 

 and tliat of J. Lecnjanum, Latr., taken by Colonel 

 Hardwicke in the East Indies, also produces an as- 

 semblage of very long filaments, that resemble a dried 

 fucus or a filamentous lichen. — The clothing of the 

 Tinece^ clothes-moths and others, and also of the case- 

 worms, having enlarged upon it in a former letter*^, I 

 shall not repeat here. 



Some insects, that they may not be discovered and 

 become the prey of their enemies when they are re- 

 posing, conceal themselves in flowers. The male of a 

 little bee {Apis Cmnpanularum, K., Heriades, Latr.), a 

 true Sybarite, dozes voluptuously in the bells of the dif- 

 ferent species of Campanula — in which, indeed, I have 

 often found other kinds asleep. Linne named another 

 species Jlorisot72nis on account of a similar propensity. 

 A third, a most curious and rare species {Melitta spi- 

 nigera, K.), shelters itself when sleeping, at least I once 

 found it there so circumstanced, in the nest-like umbel 

 of the wild carrot. You would think it a most extra- 

 ordinary freak of Nature, should any quadruped sleep 

 suspended by its jaws, (some birds however are said, I 

 think, to have such a habit,) — yet insects do this occa- 

 sionally. Linne informs us that a little bee {Apis va- 

 riegata) passes the night thus suspended to the beak of 

 the flowers o{ Geranium phaium : and I once found one of 



= Reaiim. 233— " Kirby in Linn. Trans, iii. }0. 



^ Vol. I. 2d Ed. 460-70. 



