INSECTS. 



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Glow Worm. Ichneumon Fly. Gadfly. Common Fly. 



The Glow Worm has heen celebrated, in all ages, for the light it emits, by night, from itself. The male 

 and female differ from each other almost as much as though belonging to different races. The male is 

 completely a beetle, having wings and wing-cases, and flying in the air at will, while the female is wingless, 

 and is, in all respects, a creeping insect. The body of the female has eleven joints, with an oval breast- 

 plate, her head being over this, and very small. She alone is luminous, and it is supposed she is thus 

 endowed in order to attract her male companion. 



The Common Fly is of an ashy-grey, with four black streaks upon the upper part of the back, with the 

 hinder part of blackish-brown, spotted with black below, and yellowish-brown above. The larva) are bred 

 in dung, carrion, and fish, and the pupae lie parallel to each other. On the approach of winter they get 

 benumbed, or what is called blind, before they disappear. They are most troublesome, disagreeable ani- 

 mals in the warm season, attacking all articles of food, defiling mirrors, ceilings, paintings, and every thing 

 they can reach, and irritating ourselves to* the verge of endurance by their incessant assaults upon every 

 exposed part of our persons. 



The Ichneumon Fly has a long, slender, black body, four wings like the bee, and a three-forked tail, 

 consisting of bristles ; the two outermost black, and the middle red. It takes its name from the little 

 quadruped so destructive to the crocodile, as it strongly resembles that in its courage and rapacity. 



Though this three-forked instrument is apparently slender and feeble, yet it is really a powerful and effi- 

 cacious weapon. There is hardly any substance which it will not pierce ; it is the weapon of defence, it 

 is used in destroying prey, and still more, by it the animal deposits her eggs wherever she chooses. The 

 last named being its chief use, the male is not provided with it. 



All flies of this kind are produced in the same way, owing their birth to the destruction of some other 

 insect, within whose body the egg was deposited, and upon whose vitals the young fly feed, till arrived at 

 maturity. There is no insect whatever, which the female Ichneumon will not attack, in order to leave this 

 fatal deposit within its body, even the spider, himself, so feared by other insects. 



The Gadflies resemble large, thick-haired flies, furnished with a sort of proboscis, and short antennae, 

 and the feet, in some species, are terminated by two hooks. They take no food, and have a very brief 

 existence, but when they appear in clouds, the cattle instantly fly, and strive by every possible means to 

 get rid of them, as they often cause serious disorders. 



The Gadflies deposit their eggs in the nostrils or under the skin of herbivorous animals, where they 

 occasion tumors, in which the larvae are bred, and upon the pus of which they feed. When full fed, they 

 drop on and enter the ground, where they are changed into an oval, hard pupa. 



The Oestrus Equi, or Gadfly of the Horse, is distinguished from other Oestri by the smoothness of the 

 thorax and by the equi-distance of the eyes from each other in both sexes. It is nearly half an inch long ; 

 with, gauze-like yellow and brown wings, with chest of a rusty color on the sides and a yellow tinge poste- 

 riorly ; with belly of a reddish-brown above and dirty-grey below ; and with extremity almost black. The 

 whole insect is thickly covered with down. 



The Gadfly is seen, in the latter part of summer, very busy about horses ; this is the impregnated 

 female depositing her eggs. She selects some part of the horse, which he can reach with his tongue, and 

 which he often licks, and drops upon it from fifty to one hundred eggs, which adhere to the hair by a 

 glutinous substance surrounding them. Having thus exhausted herself, she slowly flies off, and soon dies. 



