298 



MOTIONS OF INSECTS. 



Other circular motions of sportive insects take place in the 

 waters. Linne, in his Lapland tour, noticed a black Tipula 

 which ran over the water, and turned round like a whirlwig, 

 or Gyrinus. 1 This last insect I have often mentioned ; — it 

 seems the merriest and most agile of all the inhabitants of 

 the waves. Wonderful is the velocity with which they turn 

 round and round, as it were pursuing each other in incessant 

 circles, sometimes moving in oblique, and indeed in every 

 other direction. Now and then they repose on the surface, 

 as if fatigued with their dances, and desirous of enjoying the 

 full effect of the sun-beam : if you approach they are instan- 

 taneously in motion again. Attempt to entrap them with 

 your net, and they are under the water and dispersed in a 

 moment. When the danger ceases they reappear, and re- 

 sume their vagaries. Covered with lucid armour, when the 

 sun shines they look like little dancing masses of silver or 

 brilliant pearls. 2 



But the motions of this kind to which I particularly wish 

 to call your attention are the choral dances of males in the 

 air; for the dancing sex amongst insects is the masculine, 

 the ladies generally keeping themselves quiet at home. 

 These dances occur at all seasons of the year, both in winter 

 and summer, though in the former season they are confined 

 to the hardy Tipularia?. In the morning before twelve, the 

 Hoplice, root-beetles before mentioned, have their dances in 

 the air, and the solstitial and common cockchafer appear 

 in the evening — the former generally coming forth at the 

 summer solstice — and fill the air over the trees and hedges 

 with their myriads and their hum. Other dancing insects 

 resemble moving columns — each individual rising and falling 

 in a vertical line a certain space, and which will follow the 

 passing traveller — often intent upon other business, and all 

 unconscious of his aerial companions — for a considerable dis- 

 tance. 



1 Lack. Lapp. i. 194. 



2 Compare Oliv. Entomol. iii. Gyrinus 4. One species, however, Gyrinus 

 ( Orechtocheilus) villosus, which, as before observed, pursues its dances only at 

 night, differs also from its congeners in not having the same habit of diving, or at 

 least not in the daytime, when, if forced into the water from its hiding-places 

 under stones, all its efforts are confined to endeavouring to regain the shore. 

 {Ann. Soc. Ent. de France, iv. bull, lxxx.) 



