VARIOUS PARTS OF NATURE 339 



CIMEX [RANATRA] 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 multi- 

 tude of minute young of all gradations of sizes, these insects seem 

 without doubt to be viviparous. 



PHALJENA 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 

 season they leave their aurelice, and issue forth in their fly-state, 

 swarming and covering the trees and hedges. 



In a field at Greatham, I saw a flight of swifts busied in catch- 

 ing their prey near the ground ; and found they were hawking after 

 these phaloence. The aurelia of this moth is shining and as black 

 as jet ; and lies wrapped up in a leaf of the tree, which is rolled 

 round it, and secured at the ends by a web, to prevent the maggot 

 from falling out. 1 



EPHEMERA CAUDA BISETA. MAY FLY. 



June 10, 1771. Myriads of May flies appear for the first time 

 on the Alresford stream. The air was crowded with them, and 

 the surface of the water covered. Large trouts sucked them in 

 as they lay struggling on the surface of the stream, unable to rise 

 till their wings were dried. 



1 [This is the Tortrix of the oak ( Toririx viridana). Reaumur has described in 

 interesting detail the method by which the larva forms its shelter (Hist, des Insectes, 

 torn, ii, Me"m. v).] 





