S86 FOOD OF INSECTS. 



some insect. Multitudes find a delicious nutriment in 

 excrements of various kinds. Matters apparently so in- 

 digestible as hair, wool, and leather, are the sole food of 

 many moths in the larva state (Tinea tapetzella, pellio- 

 nella, &c.). Even feathers are not rejected by others; 

 and the grub of a beetle (Anthrenus Musccorum\ with 

 powers of stomach which the dyspeptic sufferer may 

 envy, will live luxuriously upon horn a . 



For the most part, insects feeding upon animal sub- 

 stances will not touch vegetables, and vice versa. You 

 must not however take the rule without exceptions. Many 

 caterpillars (as those of Thyatira derasa, Charidea Del- 

 phinii, &c.), though plants are their proper food, will 

 occasionally devour other caterpillars, and sometimes 

 even their own species. The large green grasshopper 

 (Acrida viridissima], and probably others of the order, 

 will eat smaller insects as well as its usual vegetable food b ; 

 so also will the larvae of many Pliryganecz. Allantus mar- 

 ginelhis, as I was last summer amused by witnessing, like 

 many Scalophagte, sips the nectar of umbelliferous plants 

 only till a fly comes within its reach, pouncing upon 

 which it gladly quits its vegetable for an animal repast. 

 Anolium paniceum, which ordinarily feeds upon wood, 

 was, as I before mentioned, once found by Mr. Sheppard 

 in great abundance living upon the dried Cantharides 

 (Cantharis vesicatoria] of the shops. On the other hand, 

 Necrophorus mortuorum, which subsists on carcases, and 

 many other carnivorous species, will make a hearty meal 

 of a putrid fungus; Ptinus Fur devours indifferently 

 dried birds or plants, not refusing even tobacco; and 

 from the impossibility that one of a million of the innu- 



a De Geer, iv. 012. b Brahm, Insekten Kalcnder, i. 190. 



