

Art. XLIV. — No/cs on the Habits of Insects. — By Dtlta. 



" Agrestem tenui medltabor arundine musam." 



Sir, — I have ventured to send you a few rough notes on a 

 department of entomology which has been but httle attended 

 to in this country by real naturalists, having been left almost 

 entirely to the care of literary hacks, hired by booksellers at 

 a regular stipend per sheet to compile volumes, in which truth 

 is to be sacrificed in order that the book may he popular ; that 

 is to say, may contain something wonderful, and calculated to 

 catch the notice of the multitude. Should you consider these 

 notes worth publication, I may perhaps send you a few more 

 occasionally. I leave it to your judgment to publish these 

 as a separate paper or amongst your " Varieties." 



Chelostoma florisomne has always been a great favourite 

 with me. Though not adorned with brilliant colours, or a 

 pleasing external form, the male seems to me almost a faery 

 ijeing, a little Ariel, now sporting in the sunbeams, now re- 

 posing, not certainly "in the cowslip's bell," but in the corolla 

 of that far fairer flower. 



" dont Venus compose ses bouquets, 



Le Printemps sa guirlande, et I'Amour ses bosquets ; 

 Qu'Anacreon chanta ! qui formoit avec grace, 

 Dans les jours de festins la couronne d' Horace." 



But though the male is a perfect Sybarite, a mere volup- 

 tuary, the female is the very model of maternal industry, her 

 whole life being spent in providing for her family. 



Often, when amusing myself with guiding the young shoots 

 of Atragene Austrkica or Glycine Sinensis along a trellis in 

 my garden, have I observed the female anxiously examining 

 the posts which support the trellis, especially on the sunny 

 side. Having found one which is quite dry and a little going 

 to decay, she commences by piercing a hole nearly horizontally, 

 about an inch deep, then changing the direction, she proceeds 

 as nearly in a perpendicular line as circumstances will allow. 

 Her strong mandibles, bidentate at the apex, are the sole instru- 

 ments with which nature has furnished her for this difficult 

 task; but with these she contrives to gnaw the wood to a sort 

 of sawdust, which she kicks out of the liole, passing it from one 



NO. IV. VOL. I. 3d 



