FOOD OF INSECTS. 217 
feeders, while some eat the very petals (Cucullia Verbasci, Xylina Linare, 
&c.), others in their perfect state select the pollen which swells the anthers 
(bees, Leptura, and Mordell); and a still larger class of these the honey 
secreted in the nectaries (most of the Lepidoptera, Hymenoptera, and 
Diptera). 
Nor are insects confined to vegetables in their recent or unmanufactured 
state. A beam of oak, when it has supported the roof of a castle five 
hundred years, is as much to the taste of some (Anobia) as the same tree 
was in its growing state to that of others; another class (Ptini) would 
sooner feast on the herbarium of Brunfelsius than on the greenest herbs 
that grow ; anda third (some Tinee, Termites), to whom 
Msi aa wipblwiie a river and a sea 
And a kingdom bread and butter,” 
would prefer the geographical treasures of Saxton or Speed, in spite of 
their ink and alum, to the freshest rind of the flax plant. The larva of 
a little fly (Oscinis cellaris), whose economy, as I can witness from my 
own observations, is admirably described by Mentzelius', disdains to feed 
on anything but wine or beer, which, like Boniface in the play, it may 
be said both to eat and drink; though, unlike its toping counterpart, in- 
different to the age of its liquor, which, whether sweet or sour, is equally 
acceptable. 
A diversity of food almost as great may be boasted by the insects which 
feed on animal substances. Some (flesh-flies, carrion-beetles, &c.) devour 
dead carcasses only, which they will not touch until imbued with the haut 
gott of putridity. Others, like Mr. Bruce’s Abyssinians, preferring their 
meat before it has passed through the hands of the butcher, select it from 
living victims, and may with justice pride themselves upon the peculiar 
freshness of their dict. Of these last, different tribes follow different pro- 
cedures. The Ichnewmons devour the flesh of the insects into which they 
have insinuated themselves. Some of the Qséri, fixed in a spacious apart~ 
ment beneath the skin of an ox or deer, regale themselves on a purulent 
secretion with which they are surrounded. Others of the same tribe, 
partial to a higher temperature, attach themselves to the interior of the 
stomach of a horse, and in a bath of chyme of 102 degrees of Fahrenheit 
revel on its juices. The various species of horse-flies dart their sharp 
lancets into the veins of quadrupeds, and satiate themselves in living 
streams; while the gnat, the flea, the bug, and the louse, plunge their pro- 
boscis even into those of us lords of the creation, and banquet on “ the 
ruddy drops which warm our hearts.’ Some make their repast upon birds 
only, as the fly of the swallow, and other Ornithomyia, and the bird-louse ; 
insects nearly allied, though one is dipterous and the other apterous. 
And a most singular animal belonging to the latter tribe (Nyeleribia Ves- 
pertilionis) revenges upon the bat its ravages of the insect world?; while 
snails give subsistence to Drilus flavescens, a beetle, and its singular apte- 
rous female, in the larva state, as well as to the larye of glow-wornls.° 
1 Ephem. German. Ann, xii. Obs. 58 Ray, Hist. Ins, 261. 
2 Linn. Trans. xi. 11. t. 8. f. 6—7. 3 
3 Desmarest and Audouin in Ann. des Sciences Nat. i. 67.; ii, 129. 443.; vii. 353.5 
quoted in Burmeister’s Manual of Ent. p. 552. 
