392 FOOD OF INSECTS. 



only, the vast tribe of moths quit their hiding-places ; 

 " the shard-born a beetle with his drowsy hum," accom- 

 panie$ by numerous others of his order, sallies forth ; the 

 airy gnat-flies institute their dances ; and the solitary 

 spider stretches his net. All these retire into conceal- 

 ment at the approach of light. Some few larvae (Agrotis 

 exclamationis, &c.) have similar habits, and those of one 

 singular genus before adverted to (Nycterobius] are re- 

 markable for providing in the night a store of food which 

 they consume in the day ; but to the generality of these 

 the period of feeding is indifferent, and most of them 

 seem to eat with little intermission night and day. 



Insects like other animals take in their food by the 

 mouth (in Chermes and Coccus, indeed, the rostrum seems 

 to be, but really is not, inserted in the breast, between 

 the fore-legs), but there is one exception to this rule. 

 The singular Uropoda vegetans, which is such a plague 

 to some beetles, derives its nutriment from them by means 

 of a filiform pedicle or umbilical cord attached to its 



a In the controversy between the commentators on Shakespeare, 

 as to whether shard * means wing-cases, dung, or a fragment of earth- 

 enware, and whether born should be spelled with or without the e, it 

 might have thrown some weight into the scale of those who contend 

 for the orthography adopted above, and that the meaning of shard in 

 this place is dung, if they had been aware that the beetle (Geotrupes 

 stercorarius] is actually born amongst dung, and no where else ; and 

 that no beetle which makes a hum in flying can with propriety be said, 

 as Dr. Johnson has interpreted the epithet in his Dictionary, " to be 

 born amongst broken stones or pots." That Shakespeare alluded to 

 the Beetle, and not to the Cockchafer (Mclolontha vulgaris), seems 

 clear from the fact of the former being to be heard in all places al- 

 most every fine evening in the summer, while the latter is common 

 only in particular districts, and at one period of the year. S. 



* Sharn is the common name of cow-dung in the North : therefore 

 Shakespeare probably wrote sham-born. Mr. MacLeay. 



