INSECTS. 



INSECTS. 



and which offers the proper food to the forth- 

 coming brood. 



Most insects issue from their eggs as larvae ; 

 those of the butterflies are provided with feet, 

 and are called caterpillars ; those of beetles, 

 grubs ; and when they have no feet, they are 

 called maggots. In this state, as their bodies 

 increase, the insects often cast their skin, and 

 sometimes change their colour. Many winged 

 insects, such as the grasshoppers, dragon flies, 

 &c., very much resemble in their larva state 

 the perfect insect; they only want the wings, 

 which are not developed till after the last 

 change of the skin. The larva state is the pe- 

 riod of feeding ; and insects are then usually 

 the destructive enemies of other productions 

 of nature, and objects of persecution to far- 

 mers, gardeners, and foresters. 



The nympha or pupa state succeeds that of 

 the larva. Insects do not now require nou- 

 rishment (with the exception of grasshoppers 

 and a few others), and repose in a death-like 

 slumber. To be safe from their enemies and 

 the weather, the larvae of many insects, par- 

 ticularly butterflies, prepare for themselves a 

 covering of a silky or a cottony texture. Many 

 form themselves a house of earth, moss, leaves, 

 grass, or foliage. Many even go into the earth, 

 or decayed wood, or conceal themselves under 

 the bark of trees, and other places of security. 



After a certain fixed period the perfect in- 

 sect appears from the pupa. It is usually fur- 

 nished, in this state, with other organs for the 

 performance of its appointed functions, as for 

 the propagation of its species, &c. The male 

 insect seeks the female, and the female the 

 place best suited for laying her eggs; hence 

 most insects are furnished with wings. Food 

 is now a secondary consideration ; consequent- 

 ly, in many, the feeding organs are less per- 

 fectly developed than in the larva state, or very 

 much modified, and suited for finer food, as, 

 for example, in butterflies, which, instead of 

 the leaves of plants, only consume the honey 

 out of their flowers. 



II. The food of insects is indeed procured from 

 an extensive pasture. "From the majestic 

 oak," observes M. V. Kollar, " to the invisible 

 fungus or the insignificant wall-moss, the 

 whole race of plants is a stupendous meal to 

 which the insects sit down as guests. Even 

 those plants which are highly poisonous and 

 nauseating to other animals are not refused by 

 them. But this is not yet all. The larger 

 plant-consuming animals usually limit their 

 attacks to leaves, seed, and stalks : not so in- 

 sects, to the various families of which every 

 part of a plant yields suitable provender. 

 Some which live under the earth, attack roots ; 

 others choose the stem and branches ; a third 

 division live on the leaves; a fourth prefers 

 the flowers ; while a fifth selects the fruit or 

 seed. Even here a still further selection takes 

 place. Of those which feed on the roots, stems, 

 and branches, some species only eat the rind 

 like the bee-hawk moth; others the inner bark 

 and the alburnum, like the bark beetle; a third 

 division penetrates into the heart of the solid 

 wood, like the family of the long-horned bee- 

 tles. (See BORERS.) Of those which prefer the 

 foliage, some take nothing but the juice out of 

 664 



the sap vessels, as the aphides : others devour 

 the substance of the leaves without touching 

 the epidermis, as the mining caterpillars; 

 others only the upper or under surface of the 

 leaves (leaf rollers), while a fourth division 

 (as the larvae of the Lepidoptera) devour the 

 entire leaf. 



Of those feeding on flowers, some eat the 

 petals (the rose-bug, &c.), others the farina 

 (bees, &c.) ; a still greater number consume 

 the honey from the nectaries (wasps, flies, 

 &c.) ; other insects injure the plant by punc- 

 turing it, and laying their egg in the wound, 

 and with it an acrid matter, which causes a 

 peculiar excrescence in which their young 

 are hatched and live, until they are able to eat 

 their way out, to perform the functions of the 

 parents, such as the gall-fly, &c. The death- 

 watch or ticking beetle (Anobiuni) feeds on dry 

 wood, long used, as portions of our dwelling 

 houses. 



Those insects which tenant and feed upon 

 animal matters, have an equally varied taste: 

 of these are the different kinds of bird and 

 sheep lice, &c., gnats, midges, breeze flies, 

 bugs, fleas, &c. Some of the carnivorous bee- 

 tles devour their prey entire ; others only suck 

 out their juices ; others live upon the food they 

 obtain in water, and devour swarms of the in- 

 fusoria. Many live on carrion and the excre- 

 ments of the larger animals, such as the dung- 

 beetle, and carcass-beetle; others live in the 

 stomachs of animals ; many moths live en- 

 tirely upon hair, leather, wool, and feathers. 



The food of insects varies strangely with 

 their transformations : the caterpillar requires 

 very different food from the butterfly ; the 

 maggot from the beetle and fly. The larva of the 

 Sirex gigas feeds on wood, the perfect insect on 

 flies. Those of some melolonthians live on 

 roots and tubers, the beetle on leaves. The 

 quantity of food consumed by different insects 

 varies very much : many consume more than 

 their own weight in a day. The maggot of 

 the flesh-fly, according to Redi, becomes 200 

 times heavier, in the course of 24 hours. Cater- 

 pillars digest every day about one-third to one- 

 fourth of their weight ; hence the ravages they 

 commit in a few days. Of others, however, such 

 as the day-flies (Ephemeridce) and the breeze- 

 flies, and even amongst the Lepidoptera which 

 spin cocoons, many appear to abstain from 

 nourishment. Some eat only during the day, 

 others in the evening; and others, such as the 

 caterpillars of the night moths, during the 

 night. Most of them provide their own food; 

 but a few which live in communities, such as 

 the wasps, bees, ants, &c., are fed by the per- 

 fect insect. Many provide a store of food, but 

 the greater number die unprovided with a 

 store : others feed their larvae." See BKETLE, 

 and BORERS. 



III. Destruction of Insects, fyc. by Artificial 

 Means. Various have been the recipes sug- 

 gested for the destruction of the insects 

 which destroy the cultivator's crops. Ants, 

 \ it is said, may be easily destroyed by toasting 

 the fleshy side of the skin of a piece of bacon 

 till it is crisp, and laying it at the root or 

 stem of any fruit tree that is infested by these 

 i insects, placing something over the bacon to 





