283 



OBSERVATIONS 



ON 



INSECTS AND VERMES. 



INSECTS IN GENERAL. 



THE day and night insects occupy the annuals alternately: the 

 papilios, muscse, and apes, are succeeded at the close of day by 

 phalaenae, earwigs, woodlice, &c. In the dusk of the evening, 

 when beetles begin to buz, partridges begin to call ; these two 

 circumstances are exactly coincident. 



Ivy is the last flower that supports the hymenopterous and 

 dipterous insects. On sunny days quite on to November they 

 swarm on trees covered with this plant ; and when they disap- 

 pear, probably retire under the shelter of its leaves, concealing 

 themselves between its fibres and the trees which it entwines.* 



Spiders, woodlice, lepismse in cupboards and among sugar, 

 some empedes, gnats, flies of several species, some phalaenae in 

 hedges, earth-worms, &c., are stirring at all times when winters 

 are mild ; and are of great service to those soft-billed birds that 

 never leave us. 



On every sunny day the winter through, clouds of insects 

 usually called gnats (I suppose tipulae and empedes) appear 

 sporting and dancing over the tops of the ever-green trees in the 

 shrubbery, and frisking about as if the business of generation 

 was still going on. Hence it appears that these diptera (which 

 by their sizes appear to be of different species) are not subject to 

 a torpid state in the winter, as most winged insects are. At night, 

 and in frosty weather, and when it rains and blows, they seem to 

 retire into those trees. They often are out in a fog.f 



* The number of beautiful alderman butterflies (vanessa atalanta) that may be seen basking on 

 ivy blossoms on a sunny November morning render them a pleasing object to behold. They are 

 the resort, too, of great numbers of bees, which keep up an incessant and loud humming. ED. 



t This I have also seen, and have frequently observed swarms of little winged insects playing 

 up and down in the air in the middle of winter, even when the ground has been covered with 

 snow. ED. 



