390 FOOD OF INSECTS. 



which, if the odious Ottomaques can digest and assimi- 

 late, may doubtless afford support to the larvae of Ephe- 

 merae. Yet after all it is perhaps more probable that 

 these insects feed on the decaying vegetable matter in- 

 termixed with the earth in which they reside, from which 

 after being swallowed it is extracted by the action of the 

 stomach : like the sand that, from being found in a si- 

 milar situation, Borelli erroneously supposed to be the 

 food of many Testacea, though in fact a mere extraneous 

 substance. 



The majority of insects, either imbibing their food in 

 a liquid state, or feeding on succulent substances, require 

 no aqueous fluid for diluting it. Water, however, is es- 

 sential to bees, ants, and some other tribes, which drink 

 it with avidity ; as well as in warm climates to many Le- 

 pidoptera, which are there chiefly taken in court yards, 

 near the margins of drains, &c. Even some larvae which 

 feed upon juicy leaves have been observed to swallow 

 drops of dew; and one of them (Odenestis potatoria), 

 which (according to Goedart) after drinking lifts up its 

 head like a hen, has received its name from this circum- 

 stance. That it is not the mere want of succulency in 

 the food which induces the necessity of drink, is plain 

 from those larvae which live entirely on substances so 

 dry that it is almost unaccountable whence the juices of 

 their body are derived. The grub of an Anobium will 

 feed for months upon a chair that has been baking be- 

 fore the fire for half a century, and from which even the 

 chemist's retort could scarcely extract a drop of moisture; 

 and will yet have its body as well filled with fluids as 

 that of a leaf-fed caterpillar. 



By far the greater part of insects always feed them- 

 selves. The young however of those which live in so- 



