292 IMPERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



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 cockchafer and fernchafer (Melolontha 

 vu/garis and Amphimalla 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. 1 After noon 

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

 in the air 8 : while those of M. vulgaris and A. salstitialis 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, I was so fortunate as to witness a spectacle of this kind, 

 which afforded me a more sublime gratification than any work or exhibition 

 of art has power to communicate. The first was in 1811. Taking an 

 evening walk near my house, when the sun, declining fast towards the 

 horizon-, shone forth without a cloud, the whole atmosphere over and near 

 the stream swarmed with infinite myriads of Ephemerae and little gnats of 

 the genus Chironomus, which in the sunbeam appeared as numerous and 

 more lucid than the drops of rain, as if the heavens were showering down 

 brilliant gems. Afterwards, in the following year, one Sunday, a little 

 before sunset, I was enjoying a stroll with a friend at a greater distance 

 from the river, when in a field by the road side the same pleasing scene was 

 renewed, but in a style of still greater magnificence ; for, from some cause 

 in the atmosphere, the insects at a distance looked much larger than they 

 really were. The choral dancers consisted principally of Ephemerae, but 

 there were also some of Chironomi: the former, however, being most con- 

 spicuous, attracted our chief attention. Alternately rising and falling, in 

 the full beam they appeared so transparent and glorious, that they scarcely 

 resembled any thing material ; they reminded us of angels and glorified 

 spirits drinking life and joy in the effulgence of the Divine favour. 3 The 

 bard of Twickenham, from the terms in which his beautiful description of 

 his sylphs is conceived in The Rape of the Lock, seems to have witnessed 

 the pleasing scene here described: 



" Some to the sun their insect wings unfold, 

 Waft on the breeze, or sink in clouds of gold ; 

 Transparent forms, too fine for mortal sight, 

 Their fluid bodies half dissolved in light ; 



1 The females (Scarabceus argenteus Marsh.) have red legs, and the males (Sca- 

 rabceus pulverulentus Marsh.) black. 



2 Kirby in Linn. Trans, v. 256. 



3 The authors of this work were the witnesses of the magnificent scene here 

 described. It was on the second of September. The first was on the ninth of that 

 month. 



