410 MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 



are endowed another means of defence ; at least of obviating the effects of 

 an attack. So that, when to all appearance they are mortally wounded, 

 they recover, and fulfil the end of their creation. Indeed female Lepido- 

 ptera, especially of the larger kinds, will scarcely die, do what you will, till 

 they have laid their eggs. Dr. Arnold, a most acute observer, relates to 

 Mr. MacLeay, that having pinned Scolia quadrimaculata, a hymenopterous 

 insect, down in the same box with many others, amongst which was the 

 humming-bird hawk-moth (Macroglossa stellatarum), its proper food; it 

 freed itself from the pin that transfixed it, and, neglecting all the other in- 

 sects in the box, attacked the Sphinx, and pulling it to pieces devoured a 

 large portion of its abdomen. 



We often wonder how the cheese-mite (Acarus Siro) is at hand to attack 

 a cheese wherever deposited; but when we learn from Leeuwenhoek that 

 one lived eleven weeks gummed on its back to the point of a needle with- 

 out food, our wonder will be diminished. 1 Another species of mite 

 ( Uropoda vegetans) was observed by De Geer to live some time in spirits 

 of wine. 2 This last circumstance reminds me of an event which befel my- 

 self, that I cannot refrain from relating to you, since it was the cause of 

 my taking up the pursuit I am recommending to you. One morning I ob- 

 served on my study window a little lady-bird yellow with black dots (Coc- 

 cinella 22-puncta) " You are very pretty," said I to myself, " and I 

 should like to have a collection of such creatures." Immediately I seized 

 my prey, and not knowing how to destroy it, I immersed it in geneva. 

 After leaving it in this situation a day and a night, and seeing it without 

 motion, I concluded it was dead, and laid it in the sun to dry. It no 

 sooner, however, felt the warmth than it began to move, and afterwards flew 

 away. From this time I began to attend to insects. The chamaeleon-fly 

 (Stratyomis Chameleon} was observed by Swammerdam to retain its vital 

 powers after an immersion equally long in spirits of wine. Gcedart affirms 

 that this fly, on which account it was called chamaeleon, will live nine 

 months without food ; a circumstance, if true, more wonderful than what 

 I formerly related to you with respect to one of the aphidivorous flies. 3 

 If insects will escape unhurt from a bath of alcohol, it may be supposed 

 that one of water will be less to be dreaded by them. To this they are 

 often exposed in rainy weather, when ruts and hollows are filled with 

 water : but when the water is dried up, it is seldom that any dead car- 

 casses of insects are to be seen in them. Mr. Curtis submerged the fragile 

 aphides for sixteen hours ; when taken out of the water they immediately 

 snowed signs of life, and out of four three survived the experiment: an 

 immersion of twenty-four hours, however, proved fatal to them. 4 



The late ingenious, learned, and lamented Dr. Reeve of Norwich, once 

 related to me that he found in a hot fountain on the top of a mountain, 

 near Leuk in Valais in Switzerland, in which the thermometer stood at 

 205, transparent larvae, probably of gnats, or some such insect. Lord 

 Bute also, in a letter to my late revered friend, the Rev. William Jones of 

 Nayland, imparts a similar observation made by his Lordship at the baths 

 of Abano, near the Euganian mountains, on the borders of the Paduan 

 states. They are strong, sulphureous, boiling springs, oozing out of a 

 rocky eminence in great numbers, and spreading over an acre of the top 



i Leeuw. Epist. 77., 1694 2 De Geer, vii. 127. 



5 Bib. Nat. ii. c. 3. * Linn. Trans, vi. 84. 



