INSECTS AND VERMES. I.V> 



season : for the windows being left open in the evenings, the 

 males come flying in at the casements from the neighbouring 

 houses, which swarm with them. How the females, that 

 seem to have no perfect wings that they can use, can con- 

 trive to get from house to house, does not so readily appear. 

 These, like many insects, when they find their present abodes 

 over-stocked, have powers of migrating to fresh quarters. 

 Since the blattce have been so much kept under, the crickets 

 have greatly increased in number. WHITE. 



GRYLLUS DOMESTICUS. HOUSE CRICKET. 



November. After the servants are gone to bed, the kit- 

 chen hearth swarms with minute crickets not so large as fleas, 

 which must have been lately hatched. So that these domestic 

 insects, cherished by the influence of a constant large fire, 

 regard not the season of the year, but produce their young at 

 a time when their congeners are either dead, or laid up for 

 the winter, to pass away the uncomfortable months in ihe 

 profonndest slumbers, and a state of torpidity. 



When house-crickets are out, and running about in a room 

 in the night, if surprised by a candle, they give two or three 

 shrill notes, as it were for a signal to their fellows, that they 

 may escape to their crannies and lurking holes, to avoid 

 danger. WHITE. 



CIMEX LINEARIS. 



August 12, 1775. Cimices lineares are now in high copula- 

 tion on ponds and pools. The females, who vastly exceed the 

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

 water witli 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 dismounted, 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 



