314' DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 



posed to be produced by a kind of Cynips a ; and the 

 manure for which Scopoli informs us the hosts of Ephe- 

 merae that annually emerge in the month of June from 

 the Laz, a river in Carniola, are employed by the hus- 

 bandmen, who think they have had a bad harvest unless 

 every one has collected at least twenty loads b . 



Still less is it my intention to detain you in consider- 

 ing the purpose to which in the West Indies and South 

 America the fire-flies are put by the natives, who employ 

 them as lanterns in their journeys, and lamps in their 

 houses ; — or the use as ornaments to which some insects 

 are ingeniously applied by the ladies, who in China em- 

 broider their dresses with the elytra and crust of a bril- 

 liant species of beetle (Buprestis vittata) ; in Chili and 

 the Brazils form splendid necklaces of the golden Chry- 

 somelae and Curculiones d ; in some parts of the conti- 

 nent string together for the same purpose the burnished 

 violet-coloured thighs of Scarabceus stercorarius, &c. e ; 

 and in India, as I am informed by Major Moor and 

 Captain Green, even have recourse to fire-flies, which 

 they inclose in gauze and use as ornaments for their hair 

 when they take their evening walks. I shall confine my 

 details to the more important and general products which 

 they supply to the arts, beginning with one indispensable 

 to our present correspondence, and adverting in succession 

 to the insects affording dyes, lac, 'wax, honey, and silk. 



a Molina's Chili, i. 174. b Ent. Carniol. 264. 



c Captain Green was accustomed to put a fire-fly under the glass 

 of his watch, when he had occasion to rise very early for a march, 

 which enabled him, without difficulty, to distinguish the hour. 



d Molina, i, 1/1. 285. * • Latr. Hist. Nat. x. 143. 



