CHAPTER XIV.

DRAGON-FLIES AND OTHER INSECTS.

Most dwellers in towns have had some experience of the disagreeable process of "removing." Such being the case, they will understand what we mean when we allude to the "last load," as a heterogeneous medley coming from all parts of the old house, defying classification, and more troublesome in their disposal than all the rest. With this chapter we are almost in the same position as the householder with the last load. We have a miscellaneous collection of insects, none of them of very great importance or interest, belonging to different orders, and without any other excuse for coming together than that which prevails in the "last load."

Foremost amongst these is the Earwig (Forficula auricularia), an old acquaintance in gardens, but as common in woods and many places beside. It is not every one who is aware that earwigs can fly; but they have wings amply sufficient for this purpose, and when at rest these are folded and hidden so as not to be suspected. These insects belong to the Orthoptera, which have all delicate wings, and are

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nocturnal in their habits. The female earwig broods over her eggs after the manner of a hen. De Geer, having found an earwig so occupied, placed her in a box with some earth, scattering her eggs in all directions; these she soon collected in a heap, and then sat upon them as before. When the young are hatched, they creep, like a brood of chickens, under the belly of the mother, who suffers them to push between her feet, and will often, as De Geer found, sit over them in this posture for hours.

The Cockroach (often called the Black Beetle) and the Cricket are both members of this same order; and so also are the Mole Cricket, Field Cricket, Grasshopper, and Locust. Fortunately, the latter causes us very little inconvenience in our island home, but in the Orient it is very destructive. Stick insects and leaf insects, so called from their resemblance to sticks and leaves, and the Praying Mantis, all belong to this order.

It is doubtful, even if locusts were common with us, if we should revenge ourselves upon them exactly in the same way as Jackson relates of them in Barbary, where he says, that dishes of locusts were generally served up at the principal tables, and esteemed a great delicacy. "They are," he says, "preferred by the Moors to pigeons, and a person may eat a plateful of two or three hundred without feeling any ill-effects." To what extent cockroaches are eaten by the Turkish ladies we cannot affirm, but they are said to promote obesity, one attribute of beauty.

That crickets and grasshoppers when in con

finement will eat raw meat, and even harder substances, approaching to leather, if not leather itself, has been demonstrated. This becomes less surprising when a knowledge of their minute anatomy is obtained; for they possess gizzards furnished with an elaborate arrangement of gastric teeth, as most microscopists are aware, the gizzard of a cricket being quite a "stock object."

Jaeger says that the youth of Germany are extremely fond of field crickets, so much so, that there is scarcely a boy to be seen who has not several small boxes made expressly for keeping these insects in. So much delighted are they, too, with their music, that they carry these boxes of crickets into their bedrooms at night, and are soothed to sleep with their chirping lullaby.

Minute Neuropterous insects which might be mistaken for aphides are not uncommon. These are called the Psocida. In all their states they probably feed on dry vegetable substances and lichens. They are universally common, living more or less in societies on tree trunks and palings and amongst the herbage of trees, especially firs, larches, and yews; and some species in houses and warehouses. The eggs are laid in patches on leaves, bark, or other objects, and the females cover them with a web. Mr. McLachlan believes that both sexes possess the power of spinning a web, not distinguishable from that of spiders. The larvæ and pupæ greatly resemble the perfect insects. One of these little insects which is found running over books and collections of preserved insects in cabinets, has been supposed to be one of the "death watches,"

about which superstition has much to relate. Entomologists generally do not believe that the little Atropos divinatorius, with its soft body, is capable of producing the ticking sounds which have been attributed to it. Whoever has the misfortune to possess a large herbarium of dried plants will soon become conscious of the presence of little soft-bodied insects, not much larger than mites, but members of this family, which are very liable to make themselves at home in such places.

ATROPOS.

The Day-flies1 or May-flies appear in swarms in the neighbourhood of rivers, and sometimes these swarms are so large that they inspire dread in country districts. Réaumur once saw them descend so fast that the step on which he stood by the river's bank was covered by a thick layer in a few minutes. He compares their falling to that of snow with the largest flakes. Being aquatic in their habits, they are only alluded to in passing.

The Aphis lion is one of the names which have been applied to the larvæ of what is also termed the Lace-wing fly, one of a group of Neuropterous insects with small slender bodies, four large transparent net-like wings, and prominent golden eyes. The wings have a greenish tint and reflect delicate prismatic colours. The insects fly in the twilight, remaining

1 Ephemera.

2 Hemerobius perla.

inactive during the day, and when touched emit an offensive odour. The females deposit their eggs upon plants, especially those infested with aphides, attaching them at the ends of long, slender, rigid footstalks, the base of which is attached to the leaf. These stalked eggs have somewhat the appearance of minute fungi, and it is a fact that an excellent mycologist once described and figured them as the type of a new genus of microscopic fungi. The larva which are produced from these eggs are the ant-lions, which Professor Westwood has graphically described. In the month of May, he says, a singular-looking object may be occasionally seen walking over plants, having very little of the appearance of an insect, resembling rather a moving mass of cottony or other materials: on carefully examining the mass with a magnifying glass, we perceive a head furnished with two long and slender curved jaws, followed by three pairs of legs protruded from the mass, which being removed we find an active fleshy larva, something like that of the ladybird, covered with scattered hairs. This larva feeds upon aphides, and is extremely voracious, seizing them with its jaws and sucking their juices. These jaws are moreover used by the insects for the further purpose of forming the covering which it carries upon its back, and which often consists of the skins of the dead bodies of its victims. When full grown this larva spins a cocoon, within which it is transformed into a pupa. In this state it often remains through the winter. There are several of these aphis-lions, differing from each other somewhat in form.

During a woodland ramble in summer-time one is