288 OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES. 
on the Alresford stream. The air was crowded with them, and 
the surface of the water covered. Large trouts sucked them in 
as they lay struggling on the surface of the stream, unable to 
rise till their wings were dried. 
This appearance reconciled me in some measure to the won- 
derful account that Scopoli gives of the quantities emerging from 
the rivers of Carniola. Their motions are very peculiar, up and 
down for many yards almost in a perpendicular line.* 
SPHYNX OCELLATA.t 
A VAST insect appears after it is dusk, flying with a humming 
noise, and inserting its tongue into the bloom of the honey- 
suckle ; it scarcely settles upon the plants, but feeds on the wing 
in the manner of humming birds. ^ 
WILD BEE. 
There is a sort of wild bee frequenting the garden-campion for 
the sake of its tom^entum, which probably it turns to some pur- 
pose in the business of nidification. It is very pleasant to see 
with what address it strips off the pubes, running from the top 
to the bottom of a branch, and shaving it bare with all the dex- 
terity of a hoop-shaver. When it has got a vast bundle, almost 
as large as itself, it flies away, holding it secure between its chin 
and its fore legs. 
There is a remarkable hill on the downs near Lewes in Sus- 
sex, known by the name of Mount Carburn, which overlooks 
that town, and affords a most engaging prospect of all the 
country round, besides several views of the sea. On the very 
summit of this exalted promontory, and amidst the trenches of 
* 1 once saw a swarm of these insects playing up and down over the surface of a pond in Denn 
park, exactly in the manner described by this accurate naturalist. It was late in the evening of 
a warm summer's day when I observed them.* — Markwick. 
t Smerinthus ocellatusf a species by no means uncommon. — Ed. 
t I have frequently seen the large bee moth, sphinx stellatarum, inserting its long tongue or 
proboscis into the centre of flowers, and feeding on their nectar, without settling on them, but 
keeping constantly on the wing.t— Markwick. 
* I have noticed them in particular abundance over the Croydon canal, where it passes through 
Penge Common, Kent. — Ed. 
t Macroglossa stellatarum- Decidedly one of the most interesting of our native lepidoptera, 
though dusky in its hues, having the manners of the gorgeous humming birds of the western 
world. These insects are, I fancy, every where more abundant near the sea-side. 1 have picked 
up the caterpillar upon turf, and it has undergone the whole period of its pupation with me 
n about five weeks. — Ed. 
