IMPERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 5 



" Nor wanting here to entertain the thought, 

 Creatures that in communities exist, 

 Less, as might seem, for general guardianship 

 Or through dependance upon mutual aid, 

 Than by participation of delight, 

 And a strict love of fellowship combined. 

 What other spirit can it be that prompts 

 The gilded summer flies to mix and weave 

 Their sports together in the solar beam, 

 Or in the gloom and twilight hum their joy ? " 



Another association is that of males during the season 

 of pairing. Of this nature seems to be that of the cock- 

 chafer and fernchafer (Melolontha vnlgaris and Amphi- 

 malla solstitialis\ which, at certain periods of the year 

 and hours of the day, hover over the summits of the 

 trees and hedges like swarms of bees, affording, when 

 they alight on the ground, a grateful food to cats, pigs, 

 and poultry. The males of another root-devouring beetle 

 (Hoplia argentea) assemble by myriads before noon in 

 the meadows, when in these infinite hosts you will not 

 find even one female a . After noon the congregation is 

 dissolved, and not a single individual is to be seen in the 

 air b : while those of M. vulgaris and A. solstitialis are 

 on the wing only in the evening. 



At the same time of the day some of the short-lived 

 Ephemerae assemble in numerous troops, and keep rising 

 and falling alternately in the air, so as to exhibit a very 

 amusing scene. Many of these also are males, They 

 continue this dance from about an hour before sun-set, 

 till the dew becomes too heavy or too cold for them. In 

 the beginning of September, for two successive years, 



a The females (Scarabteus argenteus, Marsh.) have red legs, and 

 the males (Scarabaus pulvendentus, Marsh.) black. 

 b Kirby in Linn. Trans, v. 256. 



