310 OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS. 



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 a room in 

 the night, if surprised by a candle, -jthey 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. 



CIMEX LINEARIS. August 12, 1775. Cimices lincares 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 fetus 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, 

 without doubt, to be viviparous. 



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, w r hich 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 aurelia, and issue forth in their fly state, swarming 

 and covering the trees and hedges. 



In a field near Greatham, I saw a flight of swifts busied in 

 catching their prey near the ground ; and found they were 

 hawking after these phalcence. The aurelia of this moth is 

 shining, and as black as jet ; and lies wrapped up in a leaf of 



