ON INSECTS AND VERMES. 373 



give two or three shrill notes, as it were for a signal 

 to their fellows, that they may escape to their cran- 

 nies and lurking holes, to avoid danger. WHITE. 



CIMEX LINEARIS. August 12, 1775. Cimices 

 lineares are now in high copulation on ponds and 

 pools. The females, who vastly exceed the males 

 in bulk, dart and shoot along on the surface of the 

 water with the males on their backs. When a female 

 chooses to be disengaged, she rears, and jumps, and 

 plunges, like an unruly colt ; the lover thus dis- 

 mounted, soon finds a new mate. The females, as 

 fast as their curiosities are satisfied, retire to another 

 part of the lake, perhaps to deposit their foetus in 

 quiet; hence the sexes are found separate, except 

 where generation is going on. From the multitude 

 of minute young of all gradations of sizes, these 

 insects seem without doubt to be viviparous. 



WHITE. 



PHALJLNA QUERCUS. Most of our oaks are naked 

 of leaves, and even the Holt in general, having 

 been ravaged by the caterpillars of a small phaltena, 

 which is of a pale yellow colour. These insects, 

 though a feeble race, yet, from their infinite num- 

 bers, are of wonderful effect, being able to destroy 

 the foliage of whole forests and districts. At this 

 season, they leave their aurelia, and issue forth in 

 their fly state, swarming and covering the trees and 

 hedges. 



In a field near Greatham I saw a flight of swifts 

 busied in catching their prey near the ground ; and 

 found they were hawking after these phalanx . The 

 aurelia of this moth is shining, and as black as jet ; 

 and lies wrapped up in a leaf of the tree, which is 

 % rolled round it, and secured at the ends by a web, 

 to prevent the maggot from falling out. WHITE. 



