324 



FOOD OF INSECTS. 



admirably described by Mentzelius disdains to feed on 

 any thing but wine or beer^ which, like Boniface in the play, 

 it may be said both to eat and drink ; though, unlike its 

 toping counterpart, indifferent 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 toucli until imbued with the haut gout 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 diet. Of these last, 

 different tribes follow different procedures. The Ichneu- 

 mons devour the flesh of the insects into which they have 

 insinuated themselves. Some of the CEstri, fixed in a 

 spacious apartment 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 

 proboscis 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 Ornitliomyice, 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 

 {Nycterihia Vespertilionis) revenges upon the bat its ravages 

 of the insect world ^ ; while snails give subsistence to Drilus 

 Jlavescens, a beetle, and its singular apterous female, in the 

 larva state, as well as to the larvae of glow-worms.^ Another 

 numerous class kill their prey outright, either devouring its 



1 Ephem. German. An. xii, Obs. 58. Ray, Hist. Ins. 261. 



Litin. Trans, xi. 11. t. 3. f. 5 — 7. 

 ^ Uesmarest and Audouia in Ann. des Sciences Nat. i. 67. ii. 129. 443. vii. 

 353. ; quoted in Burmeister's Manual of Ent. p. 552. 



