208 



MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 



sexual instrument, and useful to the females in oviposition — 

 is their sting. With this they keep not only the larger 

 animals, but even man himself, in awe and at a distance. But 

 on these I enlarged sufficiently in a former letter. 1 



These weapons, fearful as they are, would be of but little 

 use to insects if they had not courage to employ them : in 

 this quality, however, they are by no means deficient ; for, 

 their diminutive size considered, they are, many of them, the 

 most valiant animals in nature. The giant bulk of an 

 elephant would not deter a hornet, a bee, or even an ant, from 

 attacking it, if it was provoked. I once observed a small 

 spider walking in my path. On putting my stick to it, it 

 immediately turned round as if to defend itself. On the ap- 

 proach of my finger, it lifted itself up and stretched out its 

 legs to meet it. — In Ray's Letters mention is made of a 

 singular combat between a spider and a toad fought at 

 Hetcorne near Sittinghurst 2 in Kent ; but as the particulars 

 and issue of this famous duel are not given, I can only men- 

 tion the circumstance, and conjecture that the spider was vic- 

 torious ! 3 Terrible as is the dragon-fly to the insect world 

 in general, putting to flight and devouring whole hosts of 

 butterflies, May-flies, and others of its tribes, it instils no 

 terror into the stout heart of the scorpion-fly {Panorpa com- 

 munis), though much its inferior in size and strength. 

 Lyonnet saw one attack a dragon-fly of ten times its own 

 bigness, bring it to the ground, pierce it repeatedly with its 

 proboscis ; and had he not by his eagerness parted them, he 

 doubts not it would have destroyed this tyrant of the insect 

 creation. 4 



When the death's head hawk-moth was introduced by 

 Huber into a nest of humble-bees, they were not affected 

 by it, like the hive-bees, but attacked it and drove it out of 



1 Mr. MaeLeay relates to me, from the communications of Mr. E. Forster, 

 the following particulars respecting the history of Mutilla coccinea, which from 

 this account appears to be one of the most redoubtable of stinging insects. The 

 females are most plentiful in Maryland in the months of July and August, but 

 are never very numerous. They are very active, and have been observed to take 

 flies by surprise. A person stung by one of them lost his senses in five minutes, 

 and was so ill for several days that his life was despaired of. 



2 Hedcorne near Sittingbourne. 3 Dr. Long in Ray's Letters, 370. 

 4 Lesser, 1. i. 263. Note \. 



