260 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



the substance of this essay at p. 418 of his 'Treatise on 

 Insects Injurious to Vegetation.' This second account, with 

 some abbreviations and modifications, has been adopted by 

 all subsequent writers ; and its chief points are incorporated 

 in the present memoir, not, however, unadvisedly, or without 

 a careful study of the insect in a state of nature. I have also 

 to acknowledge the great assistance I have received from 

 Mr. Edward A. Fitch, one of the best observers of insect life- 

 history that ever lived, and one who has laboured, and is still 

 labouring, most efficiently in the elucidation of our British 

 oak-galls. 



In June the mother-fly emerges from the earth in which 

 she had voluntarily buried herself. Her first thought, like 

 that of our own female relatives, is matrimony; and doubtless 

 her powers of attraction, as with us, are taxed to the utter- 

 most; but in what manner they are exercised philosophers 

 have failed to discover. Her second thought, or instinct, or 

 duty, is preparing for a family. A word as to her personal 

 appearance: she is always in mourning; even before matri- 

 mony she wears the sable garment of widowhood ; her head, 

 antenna), body and legs are almost entirely clothed in black ; 

 her wings, otherwise colourless, wear a blackish shade across 

 their middle. Her native tree in this country is the sloe. By 

 beating a sloe-bush, at the beginning of June, into a net or 

 umbrella, after the manner practised by entomologists when 

 thrashing for caterpillars, you may obtain some of these little 

 black, and seemingly lifeless, creatures, which are about the 

 size of a grain of wheat. If they fall into the umbrella — 

 held of course upside down — they will roll over and over to 

 the bottom of the concavity, and there lie perfectly motion- 

 less; of course their object is to assume the semblance of 

 death, so as to deceive the uninitiated. A great number of 

 insects have this habit of feigning death, evidently with the 

 object of rendering their appearance unattractive, and them- 

 selves unrecognisable to those other insects, or animals of 

 any kind, which make living insects their customary food. 

 As though purposely to aid in this life-preserving, and there- 

 fore very excusable, deception, their bodies are so fashioned 

 that by bending their heads downwards beneath their breasts, 

 pressing their antenna), legs and wings closely against the 

 body, and resolutely abstaining from all movement, the whole 



