OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS. 451 



OBSERVATIONS 



INSECTS AND VERMES. 



INSECTS IN GENERAL. 



THE day and night insects occupy the annuals alternately : 

 the papilios, musca?, and apes, are succeeded at the close of 

 day by phala3na3, earwigs, woodlice, &c. In the dusk of the 

 evening, when beetles begin to buz, partridges begin to call ; 

 these two circumstances are exactly coincident. 



Ivy is the last flower that supports the hymenopterous and 

 dipterous insects. On sunny days quite on to November they 

 swarm on trees covered with this plant; and when they disap- 

 pear, probably retire under the shelter of its leaves, concealing 

 themselves between its fibres and the trees which it entwines. 



WHITE. 



This I have often observed, having seen bees and other 

 winged insects swarming about the flowers of the ivy, very 

 late in the autumn. MARKWICK. 



Spiders, woodlice, lepisma? in cupboards and among sugar, 

 some empedes, gnats, flies of several species, some phalaenae in 

 hedges, earth-worms, &c. are stirring at all times when winters 

 are mild ; and are of great service to those soft-billed birds 

 that never leave us. 



On every sunny day the winter through, clouds of insects 

 usually called gnats (I suppose tipulse and empedes) appear 

 sporting and dancing over the tops of the ever-green trees in 

 the shrubbery, and frisking about as if the business of gene- 



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