228 THE ENTOMOLOGIST, 



NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



Tenacity of Life in Insects. — Your correspondent Mr. Harcourt 

 Bath's note on decapitated dragonflies [ante, p. 204) reminds me that 

 after the loss of a head or still greater injury some insects will not 

 only retain their vitality for a considerable time, but will even perform 

 functions. In 1828 Messrs. Kirby and Spence wrote : — " Yet a crane- 

 fly (Tipula) will leave half its legs in the hands of an unlucky boy who 

 has endeavoured to catch it, and will fly here and there with as much 

 agihty and unconcern as if nothing had happened to it [they might 

 have added that the disunited legs themselves would exhibit move- 

 ments for an appreciable time] ; and an insect impaled upon a pin will 

 often devour its prey with as much avidity as when at liberty. Were 

 a giant eviscerated, his body divided in the middle, or his head cut off, 

 it would be all over with him ; he would move no more ; he would be 

 dead to the calls of hunger ; or the emotions of fear, anger, or love. 

 Not so our insects. I have seen the common cockchafer walk about 

 with apparent indifference after some bird had nearly emptied its body 

 of its viscera ; a humble-bee will eat honey with greediness though 

 deprived of its abdomen ; and I myself saw an ant, which had been 

 brought out of the nest by its comrades, walk when deprived of its 

 head. The head of a wasp will attempt to bite after it is separated 

 from the rest of the body ; and the abdomen under similar circum- 

 stances, if the fingers be moved to it, will attempt to sting. And what is 

 more extraordinary, the headless trunk of a male Mantis has been known 

 to unite itself to tlie other sex. These facts, out of hundreds that might 

 be adduced," &c., &c. Corroborating the last statement, though the 

 mutilation was in all probability subsequent to the act, I have myself 

 recorded (' Weekly Intell.' 1862, p. 180) the fact that the living abdo- 

 men (writhing) and hind wings (flapping) of Tapinostola hondii (female) 

 were seen in cupula with a male of that species by my friends McLachlan 

 and J. W. Downing, and also by myself. The Eev. Mr, Bird long ago, 

 in the ' Entomological Magazine,' wrote thus : — " When I was young 

 in Entomology, I wished anxiously to find the quickest mode of killing 

 an insect. Having captured a pretty beetle [MalacMus mieus) it struck 

 me that by cutting it in two at the junction of the thorax and abdomen 

 I should kill it in a moment. I took a pair of scissors and divided it ; 

 the parts fell on a piece of white paper which lay before me. Far from 

 being dead in an instant, I was grieved and surprised to see the head, 

 with the fore legs attached to it, begin to run about the paper. It 

 occasionally stumbled, but rose again, and exhibited, if I may so speak, 

 perfect self-possession. It made for the edge of the paper, but, arriving 

 there and looking over it, seemed to think it too precipitous, and so 

 coasted along in quest of an easier descent, which nevertheless it did 

 not seem able to find. This coasting and searching for a convenient 

 place of descent, suited to its curtailed condition with respect to legs, 

 of which it appeared perfectly aware, occupied the head incessantly. I 

 regarded it with astonishment. Here then, I said to myself as I 

 watched its motions, here lies the vitality of the insect ; the body at 

 any rate is dead. But in this I was quickly undeceived, for in about 

 a minute after the body had fallen upon the paper I saw the hind legs 

 brought upward, and employed in deliberately brushing and cleaning 



