CIMEX LINEARIS. 287 



CIMEX LINEARIS. 



AUGUST 12, 1775. Cimices lineares are now in high copulation 

 on ponds and pools. The females, who vastly exceed the males 

 in bulk, dart and shoot along on the surface of the water with 

 the males on their backs. When a female chooses to be disen- 

 gaged, she rears, and jumps, and plunges, like an unruly colt ; 

 the lover thus dismounted, soon finds a new mate. The females, 

 as fast as their curiosities are satisfied, retire to another part of 

 the lake, perhaps to deposit their foetus in quiet ; hence the sexes 

 are found separate, except where generation is going on. From 

 the multitude of minute young of all gradations of sizes, these 

 insects seem without doubt to be viviparous.* 



PHALJENA QUERCUS. 



MOST of our oaks are naked of leaves, and even the Holt in 

 general, having been ravaged by the caterpillars of a small pha- 

 leena which is of a pale yellow colour. These insects, though a 

 feeble race, yet, from their infinite numbers, are of wonderful 

 effect, being able to destroy the foliage of whole forests and dis- 

 tricts. At this season they leave their aurelia, and issue forth in 

 their fly-state, swarming and covering the trees and hedges. 



In a field at Greatham, I saw a flight of swifts busied in catch- 

 ing 'their prey near the ground; and found they were hawking 

 after these phalcence. The aurelice of this moth is shining and as 

 black as jet ; and lies wrapped up in a leaf of the tree, which is 

 rolled round it, and secured at the ends by a web, to prevent the 

 maggot from falling out.f 



MAY FLY. EPHEMERA CAUDA BISETA. 



JUNE 10, 1771. Myriads of May flies appear for the first time 



* Or rather there is little perceptible difference between the larva and the imago. ED. 



t I suspect that the insect here meant is not the phalcena quercus, but the^ phaleena viridata, 

 concerning which I find the following note in my Naturalist's Calendar for the year 1/85.* 



About this time, and for a few days last past, I observed the leaves of almost all the oak trees 

 in Den copse to be eaten and destroyed, and, on examining more narrowly, saw an infinite 

 number of small beautiful pale green moths flying about the trees, the leaves of which that were 

 not quite destroyed were curled up, and withinside were the exuvite or remains of the chryialis, 

 from whence I suppose the moths had issued, and whose caterpillar had eaten the leaves. 

 MARKWICK. 



* Tortrix viridana of present systematists, an insect of small size, but vivid beautiful green 

 colour (when new from the chrysalis), which, from its excessive abundance, sometimes commits 

 frightful ravages upon tlie oaks. -En. 



