522 SEASONS OF INSECTS. 



in collecting the honey from those plants. Here you 

 may take some of the rarer Chrysida, Crabronidce, Cer- 

 cerides, &c., and occasionally even Coleoptera. The last 

 insect-season may be dated from the general flowering 

 of the thistle tribe. When these are in blossom is the 

 best time of all to collec^the humble-bees (Bombus*\ the 

 leaf-cutter bees (Megackile b ), and many other Apiarice, 

 which alone by their long tongues can imbibe the honey 

 and collect the pollen of these flowers. The male hum- 

 ble-bees frequent them to the last, and often seem as if 

 they were intoxicated with their sweets. 



But perhaps you may prefer considering the whole 

 summer appearance of insects as divided into three prin- 

 cipal seasons. This may thus be done. Their vernal 

 season may commence Florente Caprea, and end Florente 

 Oxyacantha; their summer, Florente Oxyacantha and.F/0- 

 rentibus Umbellatis; their autumn, Florentibus Umbellatis 

 and Florente Carduo. In theirs/, the number of insects 

 will be daily increasing; in the second (which is the har- 

 vest of the Entomologist, when his eyes and his hands 

 ought to be every where), they will reach their utmost 

 complement ; and in the third, they will be gradually de- 

 creasing in number, till they generally die, or go into 

 winter-quarters. At this time many minute Diptera and 

 Ichneumons take shelter from the weather in the windows 

 of our apartments. These seasons will not always exactly 

 correspond with our usual reckoning, and take place at 

 the same time; since, being regulated by our varying tem- 

 perature, they will be sometimes sooner and sometimes 

 later, sometimes longer and sometimes shorter. Though 

 I have not named a brumal season, because insects are in 



. * Apis * *. e. 2. K. * Apis * *. c. 2. . K. 



