PEACOCKS. 



141 



that wonderful star-tailed maggot which he mentions after- 

 wards ; for more modern entomologists have discovered that 

 singular production to be derived from the egg of the musca 

 chamaleon. See Geoffrey, t. 17, f. 4. 



A full history of noxious insects, hurtful in the field, 

 garden, and house, suggesting all the known and likely 

 means of destroying them, would be allowed by the public 

 to be a most useful and important work. "What knowledge 

 there is of this sort lies scattered, and wants to be collected : 

 great improvements would soon follow of course. A know- 

 ledge of the properties, economy, propagation, and, in short, 

 of the life and conversation, of these animals, is a necessary 

 step to lead us to some method of preventing their 

 depredations. 



As far as I am a judge, nothing would recommend ento- 

 mology more than some neat plates that should well express 

 the generic distinctions of insects according to Linnaeus ; 

 for, I am well assured, that many people would study insects, 

 could they set out with a more adequate notion of those 

 distinctions that can be conveyed at first by words alone. 



LETTEE XLIY. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, 1770. 



DEAR SIR, Happening to make a visit to my neighbour's 

 peacocks, I could not help observing, that the trains of those 

 magnificent birds appear by no means to be their tails, 

 those long feathers growing not from their uropygium, but 

 all up their backs. A range of short, brown, stiff feathers, 

 about six inches long, fixed in the uropygium, is the real tail, 

 and serves as the fulcrum to prop the train, which is long 

 and top-heavy, when set on end. "When the train is up, 

 nothing appears of the bird before but its head and neck ; 

 but this would not be the case, were these long feathers 

 fixed only in the rump, as may be seen by the turkey cock, 

 when in a strutting attitude. By a strong muscular vibra- 



