OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES, 



quarters. Since the Blattce have been so much kept under, the 

 crickets have greatly increased in number. WHITE. 



GRYLLUS DOMESTICUS. HOUSE CRICKET. 



November. After the servants are gone to bed the kitchen 

 hearth swarms with minute crickets not so large as fleas, which 

 must have been lately hatched. So that these domestic insects, 

 cherished by the influence of a constant large fire, regard not the 

 season of the year, but produce their young at a time when their 

 congeners are either dead or laid up for the winter, to pass away 

 the uncomfortable months in the profoundest slumbers, and a state 

 of torpidity. 



When house-crickets are out and running about in a room in the 

 night, if surprised by a candle, they give two or three shrill notes, 

 as it were for a signal to their fellows, that they may escape to their 

 crannies and lurking-holes, to avoid danger. WHITE. 



CIMEX LINEARIS. 



August 12/1775. Cimices lineares are now in high copulation on 

 ponds and pools. The females, who vastly exceed the males in 

 bulk, dart and shoot along on the surface of the water with the 

 males on their backs. When a female chooses to be disengaged, 

 she rears, and jumps, and plunges, like an unruly colt ; the lover 

 thus dismounted, soon finds a new mate. The females, as fast as 

 their curiosities are satisfied, retire to another part of the lake, 

 perhaps to deposit their foetus in quiet ; hence the sexes are found 

 separate, except where generation is going on. From the multitude 

 of minute young of all gradations of sizes, these insects seem with- 

 out doubt to be viviparous. WHITE. 



PHAL^NA QUERCUS. 



Most of our oaks are naked of leaves, and even the Holt in 

 general, having been ravaged by the caterpillars of a small Phalcena, 

 which is of a pale yellow colour. These insects, though a feeble 

 race, yet, from their infinite numbers, are of wonderful effect, being 

 able to destroy the foliage of whole forests and districts. At this 



