34 EAST KENT NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETV. 



pillars which feed on the leaves and other parts of plants is the 

 hop-dog ; and the devastation of such insects is too well known. 

 For example, in the year 1782 such were the ravages of Por- 

 thesia auriflora that prayers were ordered to be read in our 

 churches to arrest its devastations, as related by Mr. Curtis in 

 his ' Short History of the Brown-tail Moth,' published during that 

 disastrous year; and our agricultural annals abound in similar 

 accounts. But while we lament the manifold injuries inflicted 

 by insects, we should not be unmindful of their benefits. Thus 

 to insects we owe honey, wax, and silk, some valuable medicines, 

 abundant food for birds and many other animals, and even for 

 man — "his meat was locusts and wild honey ;" the conversion of 

 vegetable matter into nitrogenous compounds for manure ; and, 

 above all, the fertilisation of countless plants. In short, though 

 the damages done by insects may be part of the primeval curse, 

 in our present state these creatures are so essential to our welfare 

 that, were they all completely swept from the face of the earth, 

 there would be more lamentation for their absence than has ever 

 been caused by their presence ; and, indeed, without the beneficent 

 agency of insects it is probable that numberless plants and animals, 

 including the human race, would fade from the face of our planet. 



Stenopterix himndinis. — This parasite, though commonly de- 

 scribed as infesting the swift, occurs frequently at Canterbury on 

 the swallow. Tiie Rev. C. W. Bewsher submitted to the meeting 

 specimens from the swallow. They belong to the Piipiparae, a 

 family of dipterous insects, which, however insignificant singly, 

 are very formidable when occurring in numbers. Thus, the Hip- 

 pohosca equina, though scarcely larger than a small house-fly, has 

 prevented the assembly or operations of armies ; even lately in- 

 tended reviews and bivouacs of cavalry in one of our forests were 

 said to have been defeated by the mere demonstrations of these 

 insects. 



On examination under the microscope the compound eyes of 

 Stenopterix hirundinis were found to be large, with the hexagonal 

 facets of proportionable size — a structure of which the function 

 in a creature passing its life buried among the roots of the bird's 

 feathers is not very obvious. The pigment behind the corneal 

 facets was red. The transverse striae of the muscular fibres of the 

 legs were large and distinct, and sometimes presented an approach 

 to a spiral form, recalling the more evident appearance thereof 

 in a mounted specimen which is in the possession of the eminent 

 zoologist. Dr. Bowerbank, and which was prepared from an am- 

 putated human limb. The magnitude of these transverse mark- 

 ings is noteworthy, because it has been regarded by Leydig and 

 others as related to the activity of the muscles. 'But the legs of 

 Stenopterix are not remarkable for activity ; and the Hon. Secre- 

 tary had long since proved of its host, the swift, that the trans- 

 verse striae of the wonderfully active pectoral muscles are much 

 finer or smaller than the corresponding striae of the comparatively 

 idle crural muscles of the saaae bird. Indeed, the different cha- 



