OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES. 



INSECTS IN GENERAL. 



THE day and night insects occupy the annuals alternately : the 

 papilios, muscas, and apes, are succeeded at the close of day by 

 phalsense, earwigs, woodlice, &c. In the dusk of the evening, when 

 beetles begin to buz, partridges begin to call ; these two circum- 

 stances are exactly coincident. 



Ivy is the last flower that supports the hymen opterous and dip- 

 terous insects. On sunny days quite on to November they swarm 

 on trees covered with this plant ; and when they disappear, 

 probably retire under the shelter of its leaves, concealing themselves 

 between its fibres and the trees which it entwines. WHITE. 



This I have often observed, having seen bees and other winged 

 insects swarming about the flowers of the ivy very late in the 

 autumn. MARKWICK. 



Spiders, woodlice, lepismas in cupboards and among sugar, some 

 empedes, gnats, flies of several species, some phatoenos in hedges, 

 earth worms, &c., are stirring at all times when winters are mild, 

 and are of great service to those soft-billed birds that never 

 leave us. 



On every sunny day the winter through clouds of insects usually 

 called gnats (I suppose tipulae and empedes) appear sporting and 

 dancing over the tops of the evergreen-trees in the shrubbery, and 

 striking about as if the business of generation was still going on. 

 Hence it appears that these diptera (which by their sizes appear to be 

 of different species), are not subject to a torpid state in the winter, 



