* . Fa wh, 
* 
* 
* ¢ 
= * ™ . 
_ Miscellaneous Observations on Insects: 147 
learning the progress, and indeed, the character of the curculio, 
with the larve of which this fruit was obviously infested. I had 
never seen the perfect insect. In a few days, the larve forsook 
the plums, and penetrated the contained earth. I did not expect 
to see any thing more of them till next spring; but on casually 
looking at the jar about a month afterward I was greatly surpris- 
ed to find that my prisoners had put off their old clothes, and as- 
sumed a quite different appearance. They had of course retired 
below merely to change their dress; but I did not expect them to 
get through with the duties of the toilet so soon. They were now 
(eighteen or twenty of them) ready to effect their escape through 
the gauze with which I had covered the vessel. They manifest- 
ed much sagacity ; a strong light would arrest all their motions ; 
and when the jar was struck, they would instantly fold up their 
little limbs, and remain for a considerable time motionless and at- 
tached to the gauze, or drop to the earth below like an-inanimate 
thing. In a faint light they were “nimble as a bug,” traversing 
the jar in all directions, but especially going upwards, tumbling 
down, and returning to the top. I separated two of them, and pla- 
ced them with a sound plum, in another glass vessel, to witness 
the manner of their depredation upon the fruit. They lost no time 
in mounting the plum, and preying upon it; but instead of the 
usual incision for the deposit of an egg, they feasted upon it, 
making a broad area where they fed. I am trying a similar ex- 
periment with the “ fly,” which has been sadly mischievous this 
year in our neighborhood, attacking in some instances the rye 
and barley as well as the wheat. 
What a difference there is in the retentiveness of life in differ- 
ent insects! A large coleopter I could not destroy by several days 
confinement in carbonic acid gas: after this trial I subjected it for 
hours, to strong ammoniacal gas, with no perceptible effect ; and 
Starvation afterward-for several weeks, was not fatal to it. (It 
forcibly reminded me of some “ bots” upon which I tried experi- 
ments many years ago: I could not succeed in killing them by 
any of the powerful agents to which I exposed them, till I cover- 
ed them with sulphur and set fire to it.) On the other hand, some 
heuroptera perished in ten hours by confinement in common ait. 
Lepisma saccharina was placed in a vessel with a small, green, 
trigonal shaped or rhore properly triquetrous Gryllus: the latter in 
twenty four hours was exceedingly feeble, and soon after died ; 
