QQQ MOTIONS OF INSECTS. 



fly with their bodies in a horizontal position, or nearly so. As their wings 

 are usually so ample, we need not wonder thar the Lepidoptera are 

 excellent fliers. Indeed they seem to flit untired from flower to flower, 

 and from field to field ; impelled at one while by hunger, and at another 

 by love or maternal solicitude. The distance to which some males will 

 fly is astonishing. That of one of the silk-worm moths (Attacus Paphia) 

 is stated to travel sometimes more than a hundred miles in this way.^ 

 Our most beautiful butterfly, the purple emperor (Apatura Iris), when 

 he makes his first appearance fixes his throne on the summit of some 

 lofty oak, from whence in sunny days, unattended by his empress, who 

 does not fly, he takes his excursions. Launching into the air from one 

 of the highest twigs, he mounts often to so great a height as to become 

 invisible. When the sun is at the meridian his loftiest flights take place ; 

 and about four in the afternoon he resumes his station of repose.^ The 

 large bodies of hawk-moths (Sphinx F.) are carried by wings remarkably 

 strong both as to nervures and texture, and their flight is proportionably 

 rapid and direct. That of butterflies is by dipping and rising alternately, 

 so as to form a zigzag line with vertical angles, which the animal often 

 describes with a skipping motion, so that each zigzag consists of smaller 

 ones. This doubtless renders it more difficult for the birds to take them 

 as they fly ; and thus the male, when paired, often flits away with the 

 female. 



Amongst the neitroptcrous tribes the most conspicuous insects are the 

 dragon-flies {Libelhduui) , which — their metamorphosis, habits, mode of 

 life, and characters considered — form a distinct and natural order of them- 

 selves. Their four wings, which are nearly equal in size, are a complete 

 and beautiful piece of net-work, resembling the finest lace, the meshes 

 of which are usually filled by a pure, transparent, glassy membrane. In 

 two of the genera belonging to this tribe the wings, when the animal is 

 at rest, are always expanded, so that they can take flight in an instant, 

 no previous unfolding of these organs being necessary. In Agrion, the 

 other genus of the tribe, the wings when they repose are not expanded. 

 I have observed of these insects, and also of several others in diflerent 

 orders, that without turning they can fly in all directions — backwards, and 

 to the right and left, as well as forwards. This ability to fly all ways, 

 without having to turn, must be very useful to them when pursued by a 

 bird. Leeuwenhoek oftce saw a swallow chasing an insect of this tribe, 

 which he calls a Mordclla, in a menagerie about a hundred feet long. 

 The little creature flew with such astonishing velocity — to the right, to 

 the left, and in all directions — that this bird of rapid wing and ready 

 evolution was unable to overtake and entrap it ; the insect eluding every 

 attempt, and being generally six feet before it.^ Indeed, such is the 

 power of the long wings by which the dragon-flies are distinguished, par- 



' Linn. Trans, vii. 40. 



» Haworili, Lepidopt. Brit. i. 19. Mr. Hewitson, in an interesting notice of this species, 

 informs us that at Kissingen in Bavaria, where he had an opportunity of observing its habits 

 in June and July, 1839, after long ami rapid flights in the outvkirts of a neighboring forest, 

 they would enter its most shady recesses to cool themselves, and lap the moisture from any 

 puddles of water (preferring the most filthy) with their long trunks; and were socager 

 in this occupation that he has had seven under a small flat net at once, and could even take 

 them readily with his finger and thumb. {Entomologist, June, 1842, p. 324.) 



» Leeuw. Ej)ist. 6. Mart. 1717. 



