[727]PlateVII.Fig.5.[728]PlateVII.Fig.8. 10.[729]Obs. on the Animal Œconomy, p. 221. Compare Reaum. ii. 167.[730]Redide Insectis, 39.[731]New Travels, i. xxxix.[732]Phil. Trans.1740, p. 441. I confess, notwithstanding Mr. Baker's general accuracy, that I suspect some mistake here.[733]Leeuw.Op.ii. 363.[734]Not having ever met with another specimen, I am unable to say of what precise species of aphidivorous fly it is the larva, nor can I find a figure of it, though it approaches near to one given by De Geer (vi.t.7.f.1-3). Its shape is oblong-oval, length about four lines, and colour pale red speckled with black. Each of the seven or eight segments which compose the body projects on each side into three serrated flat aculei or teeth; three or four similar but smaller aculei arm the head: and two, much larger than the rest, the anus, one on each side of the usual bifid protuberance which bears the respiratory plates. A bifid tubercular elevation is also placed in the middle of the back of each segment.[735]Reaum.Mem. de l'Acad. de Paris, An. 1713.211.—De Geer, vii. 187. See also Hoole'sLeeuwenhoek, i. 41.—t.2.f.20-22. Leeuwenhoek examined a spinner that was not so big as a common grain of sand, and the number of tubes issuing from it was more than a hundred. He affirms that, besides the larger spinners, in the space between them there are four smaller ones, each furnished with organs for spinning threads, but smaller and fewer in number. Latreille speaks only of a thousand spinners from each teat, and of six thousand threads from the whole—but he does not enter further into the subject.Nouv. Dict. d'Hist. Nat.ii. 278.[736]Hist. Anim. Ang.p. 8.[737]De Geer, vii. 189.[738]Leeuw.Opusc.iii. 317. f. 1.[739]1 Sam. xxiv. 4.[740]Lesser,L.ii. 291.[741]L. xi. c. 24.[742]I am not certain whether the garden spider does not more frequently form one or two of the principal radii of the net, before she spins the exterior lines.[743]Treatise on the Apple and Pear, p. 97.[744]Some time after making this experiment I stumbled upon a passage in Redi (De Insectis, p. 119.) from which it appears that Blancanus, in hisCommentaries upon Aristotle, has related a series of observations which led him to precisely the same result. Lehmann, too, in a paper in theTransactions of the Society of Naturalists at Berlin(translated in thePhilosophical Magazine, xi. 323.) has given an explanation somewhat similar of the operations of this very spider, but I am inclined to think erroneous in some particulars. He describes it as emittingnumerousfloating threads at thecommencementof its descent. That he is mistaken in supposing these threads to be more than one, is proved by the fact which I have observed—that even that one sometimes breaks by the weight of the spider. How then could an insect almost as big as a gooseberry be supported by a line of the tenuity here attributed to it?[745]An.vii.Vindemiaire. Translated inPhil. Mag.ii. 275.[746]Hist. Anim. Ang.p. 7.[747]Plin.Hist. Nat.l. xi. c. 17.[748]May not the spinners mentioned by Leeuwenhoek (see above p. 404,note) be peculiar to the retiary spiders, and furnish this viscid thread?[749]Brez,La Flore des Insectophiles, 129.[750]Lister,Hist. Anim. Ang.32, tit. 4.[751]Phil. Tr.1668, p. 792.[752]Embassy to China, i. 343.[753]Bemerkungen auf einer Reise um die Welt.i. 63.[754]PlateXIX.Fig.8.[755]The nests of this animal which I saw at Fontainebleau (in the pit producing the fossil named after that place) were scarcely half the dimensions here given, but they might probably be younger insects. I kept one in a box of sand several days, in which it regularly formed its pit, whenever obliterated by shaking. The bottom of the box unfortunately came out as I was upon my return to England, and the animal was killed.[756]Reaum. vi. 333-78. Bonnet, ii. 380.[757]Bonnet, ix. 414. De Geer, vi. 168.t.10.[758]Melitta.*. a. K.[759]Grew'sRarities of Gresham Colledge, 154. Kirby,Mon. Ap. Angl.i. 131.Melitta.*. a.[760]CurtisBrit. Ent. t.61.[761]Mon. Ap. Angl.i. 173.Apis.**. c. 2. α. From later observations I am inclined to think that these cells may possibly, as in the case of the humble-bee, be in fact formed by the larva previously to becoming a pupa, after having eaten the provision of pollen and honey with which the parent bee had surrounded it. The vermicular shape, however, of the masses with which the cases are surrounded, does not seem easily reconcileable with this supposition, unless they are considered as the excrement of the larva.[762]Apis.**. d. 2. β. K.[763]Reaum. vi. 39-50.Mon. Ap. Angl.i. 189.Apis.**. α. 2. β.[764]Ann. du Mus.x. 236.[765]Reaumur plausibly supposes that it has been from observing this bee thus loaded, that the tale mentioned by Aristotle and Pliny, of the hive-bee's ballasting itself with a bit of stone previously to flying home in a high wind, has arisen.[766]Reaum. vi. 57-88.Mon. Ap. Angl.i. 179.[767]Apis.**. c. 2. δ. K.[768]Apis.**. c. 2. α. K.[769]Reaum. vi. 139-148.[770]Latr.Hist. Nat. des Fourmis, 297.[771]Reaum. vi. 971-24.Mon. Ap. Angl.i. 157. Apis. **. c. 2. α.[772]Reaum. vi. 251-7.t.xxvi.f.1.[773]Latr.Fourmis, 419.[774]See above, p.317—.[775]Aikin'sDictionary of Chemistry, i. 455. What have probably been taken by Mr. Aikin for "kernels," in the imperforated nuts, are the cocoons of the inhabitants of these galls in the pupa state, which often extremely resemble the seeds of a capsule, as Reaumur (iii. 429.) has remarked.[776]Reaum. iii. 417, &c.[777]Introd. to Botany, 349.[778]Reaum. iii. 474.[779]Ibid. 479.[780]Ibid. 501.[781]Ibid. 479.[782]De Insectis, 233 &c.[783]Reaum. iii. t. 38. f. 2, 3.[784]Ibid. iii. 448.[785]Ibid. 455.[786]De Geer, vi. 409.[787]De Geer, vi. 421.[788]JacquinCollect.ii. 255.[789]Reaum. iii. 427.[790]Lyonet,Anat. of Coss.9.[791]P.307,392.[792]Lewin'sProdromus Entomology(sic!), p. 8.[793]Bonnet, ix. 188.[794]Reaum. iii. 100-120.[795]Ibid. 146.[796]Forsython Fruit Trees, 4to edit. 271.[797]GoezeNatur. Menschenleben und Vorsehung. Anderson'sRecreations, ii. 409. See above p.16.[798]Reaum. iii. 206.PlateXVII.Fig.9.[799]Germar'sMag. für Entomologie, i. 40.[800]x. 458.[801]Reaum. iii. 183.[802]The larvæ of the males intermix with the pieces of twigs, which are less closely and regularly arranged, bits of dried leaves and other light materials. See the excellent elucidation of the history of this tribe, whose mode of generation is so singular, by Von Scheven, in theNaturforscherStk. xx. 61, &c. also a valuable paper by Dr. Zincken genannt Sommer, in Germar'sMag. für Ent.i. 19-40.[803]Reaum. iii. 148-9. T. 11. f. 10. 11.[804]Fuessly,Archiv.53.t.31. Germar'sMag. für Ent.i. 136.[805]See above, p.165.[806]Aristot.Hist. Anim.l. viii. c. 27.[807]Reaum. iii. mem. 8.[808]Nat. Theol.230.[809]Reaum. iii. 130.[810]PlateXVII.Fig.10.[811]Reaum. iii. 156-9.[812]Sowerby'sNat. Miscell.No.ix.t.51.[813]De Geer, ii. 564.[814]De Geer, ii. 564.[815]Reaum. iii. 179.[816]SauvagesHist. de l'Acad. des Sc. de Paris, 1758, p. 26. Perhaps this, as well asM. cæmentaria, belongs to Latreille's genusCteniza.Familles Naturelles du Règne Animal, 313.[817]Latr.Hist. Nat.vii. 165.[818]Mémoire pour servir à commencer l'Histoire des Araignées Aquatiques, 12mo.[819]Reaum. ii. 128.[820]Reaum. ii. 179.[821]Huber,Recherches sur les Mœurs des Fourmis, p. 21-29.[822]Huber,Recherches sur les Mœurs des Fourmis, p. 168.[823]Stedman'sSurinam, i. 169.[824]Huber,Recherches, &c. 30-40.[825]Huber,Recherches, &c. 45.[826]Ibid. 53.[827]Ibid. 61.[828]Hawkesworth'sCook's Voyages, iii. 223.[829]Reaum. v. 390.[830]Father Boscovich observes, that all the angles that form the planes which compose the cell are equal,i. e.120°: and he supposes that this equality of inclination facilitates much the construction of the cell, which may be a motive for preferring it, as well as economy. He shows that the bees do not economize the wax necessary for a flat bottom in the construction of every cell, near so much as MM. Kœnig and Reaumur thought.MacLaurin says, that the difference of a cell with a pyramidal from one with a flat bottom, in which is comprised the economy of the bees, is equal to the fourth part of six triangles, which it would be necessary to add to the trapeziums, the faces of the cell, in order to make them right angles.M. L'Huillier, professor of Geneva, values the economy of the bees at 1/51 of the whole expense; and he shows that it might have been one-fifth if the bees had no other circumstances to attend to; but he concludes, that if it is not very sensible in every cell, it may be considerable in the whole of a comb, on account of the mutual setting of the two opposite orders of cells. Huber,Nouvelles Observations, &c. ii. 34.[831]Memoirs of the Wernerian Society, ii. 259. This however has been denied, and seems inconsistent with the account given by Huber hereafter detailed.[832]VideMon. Ap. Ang.t. 12. * * e. 1. neut. fig. 19.[833]Reaum. v. 424.[834]Nouvelles Observations sur les Abeilles, parFrançois Huber, ii. 101-288. I have observed the bees collecting propolis in the spring from the buds ofPopulus balsamifera.[835]Lindley inR. Military Chronicle, March 1815. 449.[836]Apis.**. e. 2. K.[837]Huber,Linn. Tr.vi. 215-298.[838]Reaum. vi. 7-10.[839]Memoirs of the Wernerian Society, ii. 260.[840]Reaumur says decaying wood, vi. 182; but White asserts (and my own observations confirm his opinion) that wasps obtain their paper fromsoundtimber; hornets, only from that which isdecayed.White's Nat. Hist.by Markwick, ii. 228.[841]Reaum. vi. Mem. 6.[842]Annales du Mus. d'Hist. Nat.i. 289.[843]vi. t. 19. f. i. 2.[844]Rösel Vesp. t. 7. f. 8.[845]Rösel II. viii. 30.[846]Reaum. vi. 224.[847]The most elevated of the pyramids of Egypt is not more than 600 feet high, which, setting the average height of man at only five feet, is not more than 120 times the height of the workmen employed. Whereas the nests of the Termites being at least twelve feet high, and the insects themselves not exceeding a quarter of an inch in stature, their edifice is upwards of 500 times the height of the builders; which, supposing them of human dimensions, would be more than half a mile. The shaft of the Roman aqueducts was lofty enough to permit a man on horseback to travel in them.
[727]PlateVII.Fig.5.
[728]PlateVII.Fig.8. 10.
[729]Obs. on the Animal Œconomy, p. 221. Compare Reaum. ii. 167.
[730]Redide Insectis, 39.
[731]New Travels, i. xxxix.
[732]Phil. Trans.1740, p. 441. I confess, notwithstanding Mr. Baker's general accuracy, that I suspect some mistake here.
[733]Leeuw.Op.ii. 363.
[734]Not having ever met with another specimen, I am unable to say of what precise species of aphidivorous fly it is the larva, nor can I find a figure of it, though it approaches near to one given by De Geer (vi.t.7.f.1-3). Its shape is oblong-oval, length about four lines, and colour pale red speckled with black. Each of the seven or eight segments which compose the body projects on each side into three serrated flat aculei or teeth; three or four similar but smaller aculei arm the head: and two, much larger than the rest, the anus, one on each side of the usual bifid protuberance which bears the respiratory plates. A bifid tubercular elevation is also placed in the middle of the back of each segment.
[735]Reaum.Mem. de l'Acad. de Paris, An. 1713.211.—De Geer, vii. 187. See also Hoole'sLeeuwenhoek, i. 41.—t.2.f.20-22. Leeuwenhoek examined a spinner that was not so big as a common grain of sand, and the number of tubes issuing from it was more than a hundred. He affirms that, besides the larger spinners, in the space between them there are four smaller ones, each furnished with organs for spinning threads, but smaller and fewer in number. Latreille speaks only of a thousand spinners from each teat, and of six thousand threads from the whole—but he does not enter further into the subject.Nouv. Dict. d'Hist. Nat.ii. 278.
[736]Hist. Anim. Ang.p. 8.
[737]De Geer, vii. 189.
[738]Leeuw.Opusc.iii. 317. f. 1.
[739]1 Sam. xxiv. 4.
[740]Lesser,L.ii. 291.
[741]L. xi. c. 24.
[742]I am not certain whether the garden spider does not more frequently form one or two of the principal radii of the net, before she spins the exterior lines.
[743]Treatise on the Apple and Pear, p. 97.
[744]Some time after making this experiment I stumbled upon a passage in Redi (De Insectis, p. 119.) from which it appears that Blancanus, in hisCommentaries upon Aristotle, has related a series of observations which led him to precisely the same result. Lehmann, too, in a paper in theTransactions of the Society of Naturalists at Berlin(translated in thePhilosophical Magazine, xi. 323.) has given an explanation somewhat similar of the operations of this very spider, but I am inclined to think erroneous in some particulars. He describes it as emittingnumerousfloating threads at thecommencementof its descent. That he is mistaken in supposing these threads to be more than one, is proved by the fact which I have observed—that even that one sometimes breaks by the weight of the spider. How then could an insect almost as big as a gooseberry be supported by a line of the tenuity here attributed to it?
[745]An.vii.Vindemiaire. Translated inPhil. Mag.ii. 275.
[746]Hist. Anim. Ang.p. 7.
[747]Plin.Hist. Nat.l. xi. c. 17.
[748]May not the spinners mentioned by Leeuwenhoek (see above p. 404,note) be peculiar to the retiary spiders, and furnish this viscid thread?
[749]Brez,La Flore des Insectophiles, 129.
[750]Lister,Hist. Anim. Ang.32, tit. 4.
[751]Phil. Tr.1668, p. 792.
[752]Embassy to China, i. 343.
[753]Bemerkungen auf einer Reise um die Welt.i. 63.
[754]PlateXIX.Fig.8.
[755]The nests of this animal which I saw at Fontainebleau (in the pit producing the fossil named after that place) were scarcely half the dimensions here given, but they might probably be younger insects. I kept one in a box of sand several days, in which it regularly formed its pit, whenever obliterated by shaking. The bottom of the box unfortunately came out as I was upon my return to England, and the animal was killed.
[756]Reaum. vi. 333-78. Bonnet, ii. 380.
[757]Bonnet, ix. 414. De Geer, vi. 168.t.10.
[758]Melitta.*. a. K.
[759]Grew'sRarities of Gresham Colledge, 154. Kirby,Mon. Ap. Angl.i. 131.Melitta.*. a.
[760]CurtisBrit. Ent. t.61.
[761]Mon. Ap. Angl.i. 173.Apis.**. c. 2. α. From later observations I am inclined to think that these cells may possibly, as in the case of the humble-bee, be in fact formed by the larva previously to becoming a pupa, after having eaten the provision of pollen and honey with which the parent bee had surrounded it. The vermicular shape, however, of the masses with which the cases are surrounded, does not seem easily reconcileable with this supposition, unless they are considered as the excrement of the larva.
[762]Apis.**. d. 2. β. K.
[763]Reaum. vi. 39-50.Mon. Ap. Angl.i. 189.Apis.**. α. 2. β.
[764]Ann. du Mus.x. 236.
[765]Reaumur plausibly supposes that it has been from observing this bee thus loaded, that the tale mentioned by Aristotle and Pliny, of the hive-bee's ballasting itself with a bit of stone previously to flying home in a high wind, has arisen.
[766]Reaum. vi. 57-88.Mon. Ap. Angl.i. 179.
[767]Apis.**. c. 2. δ. K.
[768]Apis.**. c. 2. α. K.
[769]Reaum. vi. 139-148.
[770]Latr.Hist. Nat. des Fourmis, 297.
[771]Reaum. vi. 971-24.Mon. Ap. Angl.i. 157. Apis. **. c. 2. α.
[772]Reaum. vi. 251-7.t.xxvi.f.1.
[773]Latr.Fourmis, 419.
[774]See above, p.317—.
[775]Aikin'sDictionary of Chemistry, i. 455. What have probably been taken by Mr. Aikin for "kernels," in the imperforated nuts, are the cocoons of the inhabitants of these galls in the pupa state, which often extremely resemble the seeds of a capsule, as Reaumur (iii. 429.) has remarked.
[776]Reaum. iii. 417, &c.
[777]Introd. to Botany, 349.
[778]Reaum. iii. 474.
[779]Ibid. 479.
[780]Ibid. 501.
[781]Ibid. 479.
[782]De Insectis, 233 &c.
[783]Reaum. iii. t. 38. f. 2, 3.
[784]Ibid. iii. 448.
[785]Ibid. 455.
[786]De Geer, vi. 409.
[787]De Geer, vi. 421.
[788]JacquinCollect.ii. 255.
[789]Reaum. iii. 427.
[790]Lyonet,Anat. of Coss.9.
[791]P.307,392.
[792]Lewin'sProdromus Entomology(sic!), p. 8.
[793]Bonnet, ix. 188.
[794]Reaum. iii. 100-120.
[795]Ibid. 146.
[796]Forsython Fruit Trees, 4to edit. 271.
[797]GoezeNatur. Menschenleben und Vorsehung. Anderson'sRecreations, ii. 409. See above p.16.
[798]Reaum. iii. 206.PlateXVII.Fig.9.
[799]Germar'sMag. für Entomologie, i. 40.
[800]x. 458.
[801]Reaum. iii. 183.
[802]The larvæ of the males intermix with the pieces of twigs, which are less closely and regularly arranged, bits of dried leaves and other light materials. See the excellent elucidation of the history of this tribe, whose mode of generation is so singular, by Von Scheven, in theNaturforscherStk. xx. 61, &c. also a valuable paper by Dr. Zincken genannt Sommer, in Germar'sMag. für Ent.i. 19-40.
[803]Reaum. iii. 148-9. T. 11. f. 10. 11.
[804]Fuessly,Archiv.53.t.31. Germar'sMag. für Ent.i. 136.
[805]See above, p.165.
[806]Aristot.Hist. Anim.l. viii. c. 27.
[807]Reaum. iii. mem. 8.
[808]Nat. Theol.230.
[809]Reaum. iii. 130.
[810]PlateXVII.Fig.10.
[811]Reaum. iii. 156-9.
[812]Sowerby'sNat. Miscell.No.ix.t.51.
[813]De Geer, ii. 564.
[814]De Geer, ii. 564.
[815]Reaum. iii. 179.
[816]SauvagesHist. de l'Acad. des Sc. de Paris, 1758, p. 26. Perhaps this, as well asM. cæmentaria, belongs to Latreille's genusCteniza.Familles Naturelles du Règne Animal, 313.
[817]Latr.Hist. Nat.vii. 165.
[818]Mémoire pour servir à commencer l'Histoire des Araignées Aquatiques, 12mo.
[819]Reaum. ii. 128.
[820]Reaum. ii. 179.
[821]Huber,Recherches sur les Mœurs des Fourmis, p. 21-29.
[822]Huber,Recherches sur les Mœurs des Fourmis, p. 168.
[823]Stedman'sSurinam, i. 169.
[824]Huber,Recherches, &c. 30-40.
[825]Huber,Recherches, &c. 45.
[826]Ibid. 53.
[827]Ibid. 61.
[828]Hawkesworth'sCook's Voyages, iii. 223.
[829]Reaum. v. 390.
[830]Father Boscovich observes, that all the angles that form the planes which compose the cell are equal,i. e.120°: and he supposes that this equality of inclination facilitates much the construction of the cell, which may be a motive for preferring it, as well as economy. He shows that the bees do not economize the wax necessary for a flat bottom in the construction of every cell, near so much as MM. Kœnig and Reaumur thought.
MacLaurin says, that the difference of a cell with a pyramidal from one with a flat bottom, in which is comprised the economy of the bees, is equal to the fourth part of six triangles, which it would be necessary to add to the trapeziums, the faces of the cell, in order to make them right angles.
M. L'Huillier, professor of Geneva, values the economy of the bees at 1/51 of the whole expense; and he shows that it might have been one-fifth if the bees had no other circumstances to attend to; but he concludes, that if it is not very sensible in every cell, it may be considerable in the whole of a comb, on account of the mutual setting of the two opposite orders of cells. Huber,Nouvelles Observations, &c. ii. 34.
[831]Memoirs of the Wernerian Society, ii. 259. This however has been denied, and seems inconsistent with the account given by Huber hereafter detailed.
[832]VideMon. Ap. Ang.t. 12. * * e. 1. neut. fig. 19.
[833]Reaum. v. 424.
[834]Nouvelles Observations sur les Abeilles, parFrançois Huber, ii. 101-288. I have observed the bees collecting propolis in the spring from the buds ofPopulus balsamifera.
[835]Lindley inR. Military Chronicle, March 1815. 449.
[836]Apis.**. e. 2. K.
[837]Huber,Linn. Tr.vi. 215-298.
[838]Reaum. vi. 7-10.
[839]Memoirs of the Wernerian Society, ii. 260.
[840]Reaumur says decaying wood, vi. 182; but White asserts (and my own observations confirm his opinion) that wasps obtain their paper fromsoundtimber; hornets, only from that which isdecayed.White's Nat. Hist.by Markwick, ii. 228.
[841]Reaum. vi. Mem. 6.
[842]Annales du Mus. d'Hist. Nat.i. 289.
[843]vi. t. 19. f. i. 2.
[844]Rösel Vesp. t. 7. f. 8.
[845]Rösel II. viii. 30.
[846]Reaum. vi. 224.
[847]The most elevated of the pyramids of Egypt is not more than 600 feet high, which, setting the average height of man at only five feet, is not more than 120 times the height of the workmen employed. Whereas the nests of the Termites being at least twelve feet high, and the insects themselves not exceeding a quarter of an inch in stature, their edifice is upwards of 500 times the height of the builders; which, supposing them of human dimensions, would be more than half a mile. The shaft of the Roman aqueducts was lofty enough to permit a man on horseback to travel in them.