E 0 M 
JB O M 
241 
p.Tnd, which are composed of five oblong 
purple petals, with a great number of stamina 
in the centre; when these tall off, they are 
succeeded by oval fruit as large as a swan’s 
egg, having a thick ligneous cover, which, 
when ripe, opt'ns in five parts, and is full of 
a dark short cotton, inclosing many roundish 
seeds as large as small peas. 
4. Bombax gossipinum. Besides the spe- 
cies above described, Mr. Miller mentions 
another which he saw in the gardens of the 
late duke of Richmond at G oodwood, and 
was raised from seeds which came from the 
East Indies. 
These plants, being natives of warm cli- 
mates, must always be kept in a stove. '1 hey 
are raised from seeds procured in the cap- 
sules from the places where they grow natu- 
rally. They must be watered plentifully in 
summer, but moderately in winter. 
The dark short cotton of the first and third 
species is used by the poorer inhabitants of 
those places where such trees grow, to stuff 
pillows or chairs, but is generally deemed 
unwholesome to lie upon. r l lie beautiful 
purple down of the heptaphyllum is spun, 
wrought into clothes, and worn without 
being dyed any other colour, by the inha- 
bitants of the Spanish West Indies, where 
the tree naturally grows. Large pirogues, or 
canoes fit to carry a sail, are made both at 
Senegal and in America, of the trunk of the 
silk-cotton tree, the wood of which is very 
light, and unfit for any other purpose. In 
Columbus’s first voyage, it was reported that 
a canoe was seen at Cuba made of the hol- 
lowed trunk of one of these trees, capable of 
containing 150 men. 
BOMB-KETCH. The modern bomb ves- 
sels carry two ten-inch mortars, four 68- 
pounders, and six 18-pounders, carronades; 
and the mortars may be fired at as low an 
angle as 20 degrees : their principal use being 
to cover the landing of troops, and to protect 
cur coasts and harbours. A bombketch is 
from 60 to 70 feet long, and draws eight or 
nine feet water. 
BOM B1C acid. The silkworm has a small 
reservoir near the anus, from which, when 
full-grown, or especially when it is in the 
chrysalis state, a minute quantity of acid 
liquor is seen to ooze out. If the entire ani- 
mal is bruised, it gives a liquor containing the 
usual soft animal matters, with a native acid. 
Alcohol separates the former, and leaves the 
latter in solution; which, by evaporation, fur- 
nishes a very sour pungent yellow fluid, 
which exhibits all the marks of an acid, by 
reddening blue vegetables, and uniting with 
alkalies. 
BOMBYLIUS, in entomology, .a genus of 
dipterous insects distinguished by the follow- 
ing character: beak or sucker very long, se- 
taceous, straight, and consisting of two un- 
equal valves, within which three setaceous 
bristles are contained; feelers two, short and 
Ivairv: antennae subulate, and connected at 
the base. 
The antennae are short, and contain three 
articulations, the first of which is long, the 
second short, and the third or last conical, 
and terminating in a kind of appendage, al- 
most forming a fourth joint, as is to be observ- 
ed with the assistance of glasses. Those who 
have carefully examined the structure of the 
trunk with the microscope affirm, that the 
number of valves or bristles concealed within 
Yoc. I. 
(he external bivalve sheath are four, instead o' 
three as Gmelm describes them. '1 he an- 
tenna; are inserted at the base of the trunk. 
Insects of this genus have the head compa- 
ratively of a small size, of a form somewhat 
rotund, and almost wh lly occupied by the 
eyes. The thorax large, the abdomen bulky 
and rounded at the extremity, as in the bee. 
Both the thorax and abdomen are hairy, or 
covered with down. The wings longer than 
the body, and extended horizontally. Legs 
long and slender. The size and rotundity 
of the body afford an excellent natural cha- 
racter, by which this tribe of insects may be 
distinguished from those of the genera empis 
and asiius, with which some naturalists have 
confounded them. The Fabrician species of 
volucella, cytherea, and anthrax, have been 
referred to the bombylius genus with very 
little propriety. The true bombylius is a 
lively active tribe of insects, that subsist en- 
tirely on the nectareous juices they extract 
from flowers, with the assistance of their long 
proboscis or trunk. They fly with much ra- 
pidity, making all the time a soft humming 
noise similar to that of the bee. In England 
the largest species (major) has acquired the 
name of the humble-bee fly. The insects of 
this tribe are found in the winged state in the 
summer, but their metamorphose is utterly 
unknown. Only a small number of species 
in this genus are at present known. See Plate 
Nat. Hist. fig. 52. and 53. 
BOMBAX, a genus of lepidopterous in- 
sects, or rather one of the subdivisions of the 
phalaena, an extensive genus, in which all the 
insects of the moth tribe are comprised by 
Linnams. Fabrieius, in his “ Entomologia 
systematica,” admits the bombyx as a ge- 
nus, applying the term phalsena, which Lin- 
lueus gave indiscriminately to all the species 
of the moth trilx:, as a generical name to that 
particular description of moths which have 
the palpi cylindrical, the tongue advanced 
and membranaceous, and the antenna; fili- 
form. In the Systema Naturae, Linnaeus di- 
vides the bombyces into sections in the fol- 
lowing order: the elingues, or those without 
a manifest spiral tongue; and the spirilingues, 
having an involuted tongue. These twoprin- 
cipal sections are subdivided again ; the elin- 
gues, into those with the hack smooth or not 
crested, with expanded wings, with reversed 
wings, with deflected wings, with erect crests 
or tufts on the hacks ; anti the spirilingues, 
Ihose smooth, with expanded wings, and with 
deflected wings, and with the hack crested. 
The insects of the bombyx tribe never fly 
except in the evening. During the day-time 
they secrete themselves under the leaves, or 
beneath the branches, in the clefts of trees, 
where they may remain secure till about sun- 
set, at which time they appear to be on the 
alert ; at first crawling about the branches, 
then fluttering their wings, and becoming 
brisker in all their motions as the evening 
advances. The larger sort of moths, which 
we see first starting from (he woods or hedges 
after some of the geometric, are the swifts, 
the Fabrican hepiali ; which fly swiftly, as 
their trivial name implies, but low or near the 
surface of the ground: these at twilight are 
succeeded by the bombs ces and n’oe tine, 
whose flight is more elevated. They con- 
tinue to sport about till it becomes quite 
dark. The males of the bombyces fire com- 
monly first upon the wing iu search of the fe- 
ll O M 
males ; which latter are, in some few species> 
entirely destitute of wings, or at least have 
only the rudiments of them close to the tho- 
rax ; in which case the female waits upon the 
trees or herbage for the arrival of the male: 
the female of bombyx antiqua, the vapourer 
moth, is a striking proof of this ; for it has so 
little the appearance of a moth that any one, 
except an entomologist, would mistake it for 
an apterous or wingless insect. Those fe- 
males which have wings are commonly larger 
even than the males. 
The bombyces are produced from a larva, or 
as it is more usually termed by common ob- 
servers, a caterpillar. This is of a long cylin- 
drical form, having in some species a smooth 
skin, or in others more or less tuberculated ; 
sometimes the skin is covered with a fine 
silky down, or with hairs; and some of the 
larger kinds are armed with spines and 
bristles. All the larvae of the bombyces sub- 
sist on vegetables. Their jaws are strong, 
and of a horny texture ; and below them is a 
small opening, through which the creature 
draw's the silky thread of so much utility in 
its general economy. Most of these larva*, 
have 16 feet, some have only 14 feet, and 
others no more than 12 ; six of which are 
hooked, and situated on the three first annu- 
lations near the head, the others towards the 
lower extremity of the body are short, broad, 
and very different in structure. 
I lie greater number of species in the bom 
byx tribe, when in the larva state, lead a soli- 
tary life ; in which case they separate as soon 
as they are hatched from the eggs, and crawl 
about to provide for themselves, the smallest 
of these even being able to obtain its own sub* 
sistence; they can eat as readilv, and spin, 
or throw out the silky thread with as much, 
facility, as when grown bigger. The latter is 
of considerable utility to the larva; for when 
it wishes to descend from one branch of the. 
tree or bush to another, instead of being' 
obliged to pursue a circuitous course, by 
crawling or walking, it need only fasten oho 
end of the silken thread to any particular 
> spot, and lower itself by its assistance to the 
branch desired; or when suspended mid-way 
between the branches, it can pass aside with 
a swing to any other point within a conve- 
nient distance. In like manner, when ob- 
served by birds or other enemies, it can drop 
.in an instant, and elude the enemy ; waiting 
concealed below among the leaves or on the 
ground till the danger is over, and then re- 
mounting to the former spot by the aid of this 
thread. This is a provision o"f nature for the 
security of the larva* of the bombyces, in com* 
mon with that of other lepidopterous insects. 
home species of the bombyces live in so- 
cieties, as may be observed, for instance, iti 
bombyx neustria of entomologists, (the lack- 
eye-moth of English collectors.) The larva* 
of this species, by their united labours, spin a 
capacious habitation, in which the infant 
brood is hatched from the egg, and after un- 
dergoing their several transformations, finally 
become moths. 
Like other larva; of the moth tribe, those 
of the bombyces cast their skin several times.. 
M hen full grown, and approaching the pupa 
state, those ol the bombyx kind spin a sort of 
web, in which we find the most valuable silk 
produced by these creatures at any time of 
their lives. T lie silk spun bv the hairy larva* 
is obswryed to be Of little -vjtlue* because $e 
