MOTIONS OF INSECTS. 481 
selyes.”* The most remarkable insects in this respect are the sphinxes, 
and from this they doubtless took their name of hawk-moths. When 
they unfold their long tongue, and wipe its sweets from any nectariferous 
flower, they always keep upon the wing, suspending themselves over it 
till they have exhausted them, when they fly away to another. The 
species called by collectors the humming-bird (Macroglossa stellatarum), 
and by some persons mistaken for a real one, is remarkable for this, and 
the motion of its wings is inconceivably rapid.? 
The gyrations of insects take place either when they are reposing, or 
when they are flying or swimming. — I was once much diverted by obsery- 
ing the actions of a minute moth upon a leaf on which it was stationed. 
Making its head the centre of its revolutions, it turned round and round 
with considerable rapidity, as if it had the vertigo, for some time.® I did 
not, however, succeed in my attempts to take it. — Scaliger noticed a si- 
milar motion in the book-crab (Chelifer cancroides).* 
Reaumur describes in a very interesting and lively way the gyrations of 
the Ephemerz, before noticed, round a lighted flambeau. It is singular, 
says he, that moths which fly only in the night, and shun the day, should 
be precisely those that come to seek the light in our apartments. It is 
still more extraordinary that these Ephemera — which appearing after 
sunset, and dying before sunrise, are destined never to behold the light of 
that orb — should have so strong an inclination for any luminous object. 
To hold a flambeau when they appeared was no very pleasant office ; for 
he who filled it, in a few seconds had his dress covered with the insects, 
which rushed from all quarters to him. The light of the flambeau ex- 
hibited a spectacle which enchanted every one that beheld it. All 
that were present, even the most ignorant and stupid of his domestics, 
were never satisfied with looking at it. Never had any armillary sphere 
so many zones, as there were here circles, which had the light for 
their centre. There was an infinity of them —crossing each other in 
all directions, and of every imaginable inclination — all of which were 
more or less eccentric. Each zone was composed of an unbroken string 
of Ephemers, resembling a piece of silver lace formed into a circle 
deeply notched, and consisting of equal triangles placed end to end (so 
that one of the angles of that which followed touched the middle of the 
base of that which preceded), and moving with astonishing rapidity. The 
wings of the flies, which was all of them that could then be dicciagainhied, 
formed this appearance. Each of these creatures, after having described 
one or two orbits, fell upon the earth or into the water, but not in conse~ 
quence of being burned.’ Reaumur was one of the most accurate of ob- 
servers; and yet I suspect that the appearance he describes was a visual 
deception, and for the following reason. I was once walking in the day- 
time with a friend ®, when our attention was caught by myriads of small 
flies, which were dancing under every tree ;— viewed in a certain light 
1 Gardener’s Chronicle, 1841, p. 52. 
Rai. Hist. Ins. 138, 1. 
$ Mr. Westwood informs us that he has repeatedly observed the same proceeding, 
and that the insect is Simaethis fabriciana. 
4 Lesser, 1. i, 248. note 22, 
5 Reaum. vi. 484. t. xlv. f. 7. 
. Ae ae persons observing the appearance here related were the authors of this 
TK, 
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