Leiocampa dictaa. Some ascend instantly to the ceiling; as Agrotis corticea. Many, I might say the majority, pass the lamp rapidly; and this shows the comparative inutility of using a lamp out of doors, where only those that loiter about it can be taken. Some have a soft and gentle flight; as, for instance, Cosmia pyralina, one of my most welcome visitors, whose entrance I am usually made aware of by seeing something drop down on the table, as quick as hail, but as light as a fleece of snow; whilst, on the contrary, the conceited vagaries and absurd violence of Clisiocampa neustria are absolutely amusing, and Cratagi and Populi are nearly as bad. Many Coleopterous insects are attracted; I am sometimes teased by swarms of small gnats, and the house-cricket has once or twice entered; a few common Ichneumons and Tipula are frequent guests. It may be worth while to say a word on my method of securing my prey. Suppose that, with or without a bag-net, I have imprisoned a moth under an inverted wine-glass, I then light a small piece of German tinder, half the size of a sixpence, or less, and introduce it under the edge, and by means of the smoke the insect is stupefied almost immediately. It is then wholly in my power, though it would quickly revive :-I pierce it; and by means of a pin dipped in oxalic acid, and thrust into the body beneath the thorax, I prevent its revival, and fix it on the setting-board. The German tinder does not injure the colours as brimstone would, whilst it puts the moths so completely in my power for a few moments, that the specimens I thus take and kill are often as perfect and beautiful as if I had bred them." The Death's-head Sphinx (Acherontia Atropos) some I times flies into houses at night, attracted by the lights, and causes consternation among the superstitious by the peculiar squeaking sound which it has the power of making. have in my collection a specimen which flew into the kitchen of the Pavilion Hotel, at Folkestone, in October, 1849, where it not a little discomfited the cooks (no pun is intended), and was eventually captured without injury to them or it. Several species of moths may be found on the street gaslamps at night, and I have lately learned that one of our prettiest Geometrina, Ennomos illustraria, has been taken at Bristol in some plenty, by looking on the ground in the vicinity of the lamps, where the moths appeared like withered leaves. They had no doubt been attracted to the lamp by the light, and had then fallen down suddenly, paralyzed by the glare. It seems proper, under the head of this chapter, to anticipate a little, and say a word or two about the Vivarium. The most interesting portion of Entomology is the natural history of insects. This, although in its results of great scientific moment, is not Science itself; but it offers a wide field of research, very partially explored, and in which any one can observe. To bring the transformations of insects under notice it is necessary to have the eggs, if possible, or the larvæ as soon after they are excluded from the egg as they can be procured, so that all their changes and the time they occupy, their food, manner of feeding and other habits, until they become pupa may be seen, and the time and circumstances of the latter change noted. And here it may not Leiocampa dictaa. Some ascend instantly to the ceiling; as Agrotis corticea. Many, I might say the majority, pass the lamp rapidly; and this shows the comparative inutility of using a lamp out of doors, where only those that loiter about it can be taken. Some have a soft and gentle flight; as, for instance, Cosmia pyralina, one of my most welcome visitors, whose entrance I am usually made aware of by seeing something drop down on the table, as quick as hail, but as light as a fleece of snow; whilst, on the contrary, the conceited vagaries and absurd violence of Clisiocampa neustria are absolutely amusing, and Cratagi and Populi are nearly as bad. Many Coleopterous insects are attracted; I am sometimes teased by swarms of small gnats, and the house-cricket has once or twice entered; a few common Ichneumons and Tipula are frequent guests. It may be worth while to say a word on my method of securing my prey. Suppose that, with or without a bag-net, I have imprisoned a moth under an inverted wine-glass, I then light a small piece of German tinder, half the size of a sixpence, or less, and introduce it under the edge, and by means of the smoke the insect is stupefied almost immediately. It is then wholly in my power, though it would quickly revive :-I pierce it; and by means of a pin dipped in oxalic acid, and thrust into the body beneath the thorax, I prevent its revival, and fix it on the setting-board. The German tinder does not injure the colours as brimstone would, whilst it puts the moths so completely in my power for a few moments, that the specimens I thus take and kill are often as perfect and beautiful as if I had bred them." The Death's-head Sphinx (Acherontia Atropos) some I times flies into houses at night, attracted by the lights, and causes consternation among the superstitious by the peculiar squeaking sound which it has the power of making. have in my collection a specimen which flew into the kitchen of the Pavilion Hotel, at Folkestone, in October, 1849, where it not a little discomfited the cooks (no pun is intended), and was eventually captured without injury to them or it. Several species of moths may be found on the street gaslamps at night, and I have lately learned that one of our prettiest Geometrina, Ennomos illustraria, has been taken at Bristol in some plenty, by looking on the ground in the vicinity of the lamps, where the moths appeared like withered leaves. They had no doubt been attracted to the lamp by the light, and had then fallen down suddenly, paralyzed by the glare. It seems proper, under the head of this chapter, to anticipate a little, and say a word or two about the Vivarium. The most interesting portion of Entomology is the natural history of insects. This, although in its results of great scientific moment, is not Science itself; but it offers a wide field of research, very partially explored, and in which any one can observe. To bring the transformations of insects under notice it is necessary to have the eggs, if possible, or the larvæ as soon after they are excluded from the egg as they can be procured, so that all their changes and the time they occupy, their food, manner of feeding and other habits, until they become pupæ may be seen, and the time and circumstances of the latter change noted. And here it may not be amiss to say a little upon the nature of the changes that insects undergo. Wonder of wonders is it that a crawling worm, after gorging itself for weeks or months, should then be enveloped in a shroud-like covering, and eventually come forth a creature in no way resembling its former self, but of exquisite delicacy of structure, dressed in the hues of the rainbow, fitted to live in a new element, and, if it feed at all, not touching the substances on which it existed in its former state. The striking similarity of these changes to the life, death and resurrection of man evidently impressed itself on the ancient Greek mind, to which wonder and beauty never appealed in vain, and we accordingly find that one word in the Greek language-Psyche-signified both a butterfly and a soul. But these progressive developments are not absolute changes, although they appear to be so to uninstructed eyes, and they proceed, by regular successive moultings of the skin, until the idea of the perfect insect, each species according to its peculiar type, is attained. All insects proceed from eggs laid by the female parent, except in some cases where the eggs are hatched within the body of the mother, and in the case of a few others (Aphides, &c.), where the ordinary method of propagation by eggs is supplied for a certain number of generations by a process which has had various interpretations, but which is quite anomalous, and of which more is said hereafter. From the eggs are hatched the larvæ, which, after feeding a certain period, and changing their skins several times, become pupa. This metamorphosis is the great law of insect-life: it has been classed under two heads-complete and incomplete; but these are not accurate terms, and a better classification is the following: |