164 INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 
showing his skill, and for the most gratifying part of his diversion. The 
case-worm and several other larvee are the best standing bait for many 
fish. The larva of the Ephemera, there called bait and bank-bait }, is 
much used in some parts of Holland. The case-worms, and grubs (I 
suppose of flies) from the tallow-chandlers, and the larvee of wasps taken 
out of the comb, are in request with us for roach and dace ; and I am told 
by an acute observer of these things, the Rev. R. Sheppard, that the 
Geotrupes and Melolonthe are good baits for chub? But to be an adept 
in fly-fishing, which requires the most skill and furnishes the best di- 
version, the angler ought to be conversant in Entomology, at least suffi- 
ciently so to distinguish the different species of Phryganea and other Tvi- 
choptera, and to know the time of their appearance. The angler is not 
only indebted to insects for some of his best baits, but also for the best 
material to fasten his hooks to, and even for making his lines for smaller 
fish —the Indian grass or gut, as it is called (termed in France Cheveuw de 
Florence), which is said to be prepared in China from the matter con- 
tained in the silk reservoirs of the silk-worm, but according to Latreille is 
the silk vessel itself when dried.$ 
One of the most important ends for which insects were gifted with such 
powers of multiplication, giving birth to myriads of myriads of individuals, 
was to furnish the feathered part of the creation with a sufficient supply 
of food. The number of birds that derive the whole or a principal part 
of their subsistence from insects is, as is universally known, very great, 
and includes species of almost every order. 
Amongst the Accipitres the kestril (alco tinnunculus L:) devours 
abundance of insects. .A friend of mine, upon opening one, found its 
stomach full of the remains of grasshoppers and beetles, particularly the 
former, which he suspects constitute great part of the food of this species. 
One of the shrikes, also, or butcher-birds (Lanius collurio) — and it 1s pro- 
bable that other species of this numerous genus may have the same habits 
—is known to feed upon insects, which it first impales alive on the thorns 
of the sloe and other spinous plants, and then devours. If meat be given 
it, when kept in a cage, it will fix it upon the wires before it eats it. 
Lanius excubitor also impales insects ; but Heckewelder denies that it 
feeds upon them. If he be correct, the object of this singular procedure 
with that species may be to allure the birds which it preys upon to a 
particular spot.* 
Amongst the Pice or Pies the Crotophaga, called the Ani, which is a 
1 Swamm. Bib. Wat. i. c. 4. 106, b. 
2 Tn Col. Venable’s Lxperienced Angler, a vast number of insects are enumerated 
as good baits for fish, under the names of Bob, Cadbait, Cankers, Caterpillars, Pal- 
mers, Gentles, Barkworms, Oak-worms, Colewort-worms, Flag-worms, ea ad 
Ant-flies, Butterflies, Wasps, Hornets, Bees, Humble-bees, Grasshoppers, Dors, 
Beetles, a great brown fly that lives upon the oak like a Scarabee (Melolontha vul- 
aris, or Amphimalla solstitialis ?), and flies (i. e. May-flies) of various sorts.—See also 
r. Ronalds’ 1 Entomology. 
5 Anderson’s Recreations in Agricult. &c. iv. 478.; Latr. Hist. Nat. xiv. 154. 
4 According to Mr. Heckewelder (Zrans. Amer. Phil. Soc. iv. 124.), L. excubitor, 
called in America the nine-killer, from an idea that it transfixes nine individuals 
daily, treats in this manner Grasshoppers: only; while Z. collurio would seem to 
restrict itself chiefly to Geotrupes, two of which Mr. Sheppard once observed trans- 
fixed ina hedge that he knew to be the residence of this bird. MKugellan even 
