none superior to the little, bee-like bombylius (bombylius medius); but
this creature is to be seen only in the mornings of a few bright days in
spring, seeming to delight in the hot, windy gleams of that season,
presenting an emblem of that portion of our year, fugitive and violent.
It is, I believe, plentiful nowhere. Particularly solicitous of warmth,
it seeks the dry sunny reflection of some sheltered gravel-walk, or
ditch-bank in a warm lane; and here it darts and whisks about, in
seeming continual suspicion or danger; starting away with angry haste,
yet returning immediately to the spot it had left; buffeting and
contending with every winged fly that approaches, with a jealous,
pugnacious fury, that keeps it in constant agitation. This action, its
long projecting proboscis, and its pretty, spotted wings, placed at
right angles with its body, distinguish our bombylius from every other
creature. It appears singularly cautious of settling on the ground.
After long hovering over and surveying some open spot, with due
deliberation and the utmost gentleness it commits its long, delicate
feet to the earth; but on the approach of any winged insect, or on the
least alarm, is away again to combat or escape. Associates it has none:
the approach even of its own race excites its ire, and, darting at them
with the celerity of thought, it drives them from its haunts. When a
captive it becomes tame and subdued, and loses all its characteristic
bustling and activity, the inspiration of freedom.
The great black ant (formica fuliginosa) is commonly found in all little
copses, animating by its numbers those large heaps of vegetable
fragments, which it collects and is constantly increasing with unwearied
industry and perseverance as a receptacle for its eggs. The game-fowl,
the woodpecker, the wryneck, and all the birds that feed upon the little
red ant, and soon depopulate the hillocks which they select, do not seem
equally to annoy this larger species. These systematic creatures appear
always to travel from and return to their nests in direct lines, from
which no trifling obstacle will divert them; and any interruption on
this public highway they resent, menacing the intruder with their
vengeance. A neighbor related to me an instance of this unyielding
disposition, which he witnessed in one of our lanes. Two parties of
these black ants were proceeding from different nests upon a foraging
expedition, when the separate bodies happened to meet each other.
Neither would give way; and a violent contest for the passage ensued.
After a time the combat ceased, and all animosity subsided, each party
retiring to its nest, carrying with it its dead and maimed companions.
This encounter seemed quite accidental, and the disposition to move in a
uniform line, which their meeting prevented, the sole cause of their
hostility, combat, and mutual injury. The strength of some creatures,
especially insects, considering the smallness of their size, is in
several instances prodigious. Man, by his reason and power, calls to his
aid mechanical means, and other agents, to effect his objects; but
unreasoning beings accomplish their purposes by contrivance and bodily
powers. The strength of these black ants is manifested by the quantity
and magnitude of the materials which they collect for their heaps; but
the common little red ant (formica rubea), a much smaller creature,
gives daily proofs of its abilities to remove heavy substances, equal to
any that we meet with. One of these little creatures, thirty-six of
which only weigh a single grain, I have seen bear away the great black
fly as its prize, equal to a grain in weight, with considerable ease;
and even the wasp, which exceeds forty times its own weight, will be
dragged away by the labor and perseverance of an individual emmet. These
little ants are occasionally and profusely deprived of their lives by
some unknown visitation. In the year 1826, in particular, and again in
the following year, I observed, in the month of August, a lane strewed
with their bodies. They had bred during the summer in an adjoining bank;
but some fatality had overwhelmed them when absent from their nests, and
nearly annihilated the fraternity, as only a few scattered survivors
were to be seen feebly inspecting the bodies of their associates. The
task of removal, however, with all their industry, appeared beyond their
powers to accomplish, as on the ensuing day few had been taken away. Had
these creatures been destroyed in combat by rival contention, the
animosity must have been excessive; but it is more probable that they
met their death by some other infliction.
One year, on the 3d of March, my laborer being employed in cutting up
ant-hills, or tumps, as we call them, exposed to view multitudes of the
yellow species (formica flava) in their winter’s retirement. They were
collected in numbers in little cells and compartments, communicating
with others by means of narrow passages. In many of the cells they had
deposited their larvæ, which they were surrounding and attending, but
not brooding over or covering. Being disturbed by our rude operations,
they removed them from our sight to more hidden compartments. The larvæ
were small. Some of these ant-hills contained multitudes of the young of
the woodlouse (oniscus armadillo), inhabiting with perfect familiarity
the same compartments as the ants, crawling about with great activity
with them, and perfectly domesticated with each other. They were small
and white; but the constant vibration of their antennæ, and the alacrity
of their motions, manifested a healthy vigor. The ants were in a
somewhat torpid state; but on being removed into a temperate room, they
assumed much of their summer animation. How these creatures are
supported during the winter season it is difficult to comprehend, as in
no one instance could we perceive any store or provision made for the
supply of their wants. The minute size of the larvæ manifested that they
had been recently deposited; and consequently that their parents had not
remained during winter in a dormant state, and thus free from the calls
of hunger. The preceding month of February, and part of January, had
been remarkably severe; the frost had penetrated deep into the earth,
and long held it frozen; the ants were in many cases not more than four
inches beneath the surface, and must have been inclosed in a mass of
frozen soil for a long period; yet they, their young, and the onisci,
were perfectly uninjured by it; affording another proof of the fallacy
of the commonly received opinion, that cold is universally destructive
to insect life. Some creatures may be injured or destroyed by frost, but
the larger portion of them nature has provided with constitutions to
which it is innocuous, or furnished with instinct to prevent its harming
them. These emmets had probably received no substance, or required any,
from the time of their retirement in the autumn, a period of full six
months; were inclosed during the space of thirty days in a mass of
frozen earth, and yet remained perfectly uninjured by this long
abstinence and frost.
Water, in a state of rest over decayed and putrescent vegetable matter,
is peculiarly favorable for the residence of many of the insect world.
The eggs that are lodged there remain undisturbed by the agitation of
the element, and the young produced from them, or deposited there by
viviparous creatures, remain in quiet, tolerably secure from accidental
injuries; but there are natural causes which render these apparent
asylums the fields of ravenousness and of death. To these places resort
many of those voracious insects and other creatures, which prey upon the
smaller and helpless; for all created things seem subordinate to some
more powerful or irresistible agent, from the hardly visible atom that
floats in the pool, to man, who claims and commands the earth as his
own. But we have no animal that seems to commit greater destruction in
these places than the common newt (lacertus aquaticus). In some of these
well-stored magazines this reptile will grow to a large size, and become
unusually warty, and bloated with repletion; feeding and fattening upon
the unresisting beings that abound in those dark waters wherein it loves
to reside. It will take a worm from the hook of those that angle in
ponds; and in some places I have seen the boys in the spring of the year
draw it up by their fishing-lines, a very extraordinary figure, having a
small shell-fish (tellina cornea) attached to one or all of its feet;
the toes of the newt having been accidentally introduced into the gaping
shell, in its progress on the mud at the bottom of the pool, or
designedly put in for the purpose of seizure, when the animal inhabitant
closed the valves and entrapped the toes. But from whatever causes these
shells became fixed, when the animal is drawn up hanging and wriggling
with its toes fettered all round, it affords a very unusual and strange
appearance.
Water, quiet, still water, affords a place of action to a very amusing
little fellow (gyrinus natator), which about the month of April, if the
weather be tolerably mild, we see gamboling upon the surface of the
sheltered pool; and every schoolboy, who has angled for a minnow in the
brook, is well acquainted with this merry swimmer in his shining black
jacket. Retiring in the autumn, and reposing all the winter in the mud
at the bottom of the pond, it awakens in the spring, rises to the
surface, and commences its summer sports. They associate in small
parties of ten or a dozen, near the bank, where some little projection
forms a bay, or renders the water particularly tranquil; and here they
will circle round each other without contention, each in his sphere, and
with no apparent object, from morning until night, with great
sprightliness and animation; and so lightly do they move on the fluid,
as to form only some faint and transient circles on its surface. Very
fond of society, we seldom see them alone, or, if parted by accident,
they soon rejoin their busy companions. One pool commonly affords space
for the amusement of several parties; yet they do not unite, or contend,
but perform their cheerful circlings in separate family associations. If
we interfere with their merriment they seem greatly alarmed, disperse,
or dive to the bottom, where their fears shortly subside, as we soon
again see our little merry friends gamboling as before.
This lively little animal, arising from its winter retreat shortly after
the frog, at times in March, continues its gambols all the summer long,
remaining visible generally until the middle of October, thus enjoying a
full seven months of being; a long period of existence for insects,
which are creatures subject to so many contingencies, that their lives
appear to be commonly but brief, and the race continued by successive
productions. All these water creatures must be endowed with much
perception. Cold as this element is in early spring, when the ice of
winter is hardly dissolved, and the fluid only 6 or 7 degrees above
freezing, yet they become immediately sensible of this temperature, and
are excited to animation and the vocations of their being. I have never
observed the larvæ of this creature in any state. When they retire in
the autumn, these insects appear of a uniform size, and emerging in the
spring they are all apparently full grown, and during the summer none of
smaller dimensions associate with the family parties. This plain, tiny,
gliding water-flea seems a very unlikely creature to arrest our young
attentions; but the boy with his angle has not often much to engage his
notice; and the social, active parties of this nimble swimmer,
presenting themselves at these periods of vacancy, become insensibly
familiar to his sight, and by many of us are not observed in after life
without recalling former hours, scenes of perhaps less anxious days: for
trifles like these, by reason of some association, are often remembered,
when things of greater moment pass off, and leave no trace upon our
mind.
July 29.—We frequently notice in our evening walks the murmuring
passage, and are often stricken by the heedless flight, of the great
dorr beetle[63] (scarabæus stercorarius), clocks,[62] as the boys call
them. But this evening my attention was called to them in particular by
the constant passing of such a number as to constitute something like a
little stream; and I was led to search into the object of their direct
flight, as in general it is irregular and seemingly inquisitive. I soon
found that they dropped on some recent nuisance: but what powers of
perception must these creatures possess, drawn from all distances and
directions by the very little fetor, which in such a calm evening could
be diffused around! and by what inconceivable means could odors reach
this beetle in such a manner as to rouse so inert an insect into action!
But it is appointed one of the great scavengers of the earth, and
marvellously endowed with powers of sensation, and means of effecting
this purpose of its being. Exquisitely fabricated as it is to receive
impressions, yet probably it is not more highly gifted than any of the
other innumerable creatures, that wing their way around us, or creep
about our path, though by this perceptible faculty, thus “dimly seen,”
it excites our wonder and surprise. “How wondrous then the whole!”
This creature affords us a good example of that extraordinary artifice,
to which some insects have recourse upon the apprehension of danger, the
counterfeiting of death. The dorr, with a violent and noisy flight,
proceeds on its way, or circles around with an apparent fearlessness of
harm; yet the instant it is touched, or interrupted in its progress,
though in no way injured, it will immediately fall to the ground,
generally prostrate on its back, its limbs extended, stiff, and
seemingly devoid of life, and suffering itself to be handled without
manifesting any signs of animation. In time, finding no harm ensues, it
resumes its former state. If our conjectures be correct, that the object
of this stratagem is to preserve its life, it is difficult to comprehend
how far it can be successful. Several birds feed on it, as we observed;
and that others do so likewise is evident from their castings. Of these,
the owl and the nightjar catch it when on the wing; and the crows,
rooks, magpies, &c., seem to have no hesitation in picking it to pieces,
as well as all the other beetles, that put on the semblance of death, in
whatever state they find them. One or two beasts, it is said, when
captured, feign death. With these exceptions, we remember none of the
other orders of creation, that have recourse to such an expedient upon
any emergency; but with insects it is by no means an uncommon procedure,
most probably resorted to by them for a motive we are not fully
acquainted with, and which is in all likelihood attended with the
success it was designed to effect.
The perfect cleanliness of these creatures is a very notable
circumstance, when we consider that nearly their whole lives are passed
in burrowing in the earth, and removing nuisances; yet such is the
admirable polish of their coating and limbs, that we very seldom find
any soil adhering to them. The meloe, and some of the scarabæi, upon
first emerging from their winter’s retreat, are commonly found with
earth clinging to them; but the removal of this is one of the first
operations of the creature; and all the beetle race, the chief
occupation of which is crawling about the soil, and such dirty employs,
are notwithstanding remarkable for the glossiness of their covering, and
freedom from defilements of any kind. But purity of vesture seems to be
a principal precept of nature, and observable throughout creation.
Fishes, from the nature of the element in which they reside, can
contract but little impurity. Birds are unceasingly attentive to
neatness and lustration of their plumage. All the slug race, though
covered with slimy matter calculated to collect extraneous things, and
reptiles, are perfectly free from soil. The fur and hair of beasts in a
state of liberty and health is never filthy, or sullied with dirt. Some
birds roll themselves in dust, and occasionally, particularly beasts,
cover themselves with mire; but this is not from any liking or
inclination for such things, but to free themselves from annoyances, or
to prevent the bites of insects. Whether birds in preening, and beasts
in dressing themselves, be directed by any instinctive faculty, we know
not; but they evidently derive pleasure from the operation, and thus
this feeling of enjoyment, even if the sole motive, becomes to them an
essential source of comfort and of health.
It may be noted probably by some, how frequently I recur to the causes
and objects of the faculties, manners, and tendencies of animate and
inanimate things. This recurrence springs from no cavil at the wisdom,
no suspicion of the fitness of the appointment, nor, I trust, from any
excitement to presumptuous pryings into paths which are in the great
deep, and not to be searched out; but are humbly indulged, from the
pleasure which the contemplation of perfect wisdom, even in a state of
ignorance, affords; and if by any consideration we can advance one point
nearer to the comprehension of what is hidden, we infinitely increase
our satisfaction and delight.
May 24, 1827.—Abundance of cockchaffers (melolantha vulgaris) are flying
about, yet by no means in the profusion of some years. How much at times
the interest of man and the wild creatures about him are at variance!
Those that are domesticated and precluded from obtaining food but by his
permission, have their welfare in part identified with his—they may
share in his abundance, or pine from his parsimony; but the independents
of the field are differently circumstanced. The appearance of these
chaffers, in any numbers, is very uncertain and partial, but in those
summers when they abound, very extensive injuries frequently ensue. In
the grub state, they will entirely destroy the pastures where they
inhabit, by consuming the roots of the grasses; acres and fields are
deprived of their produce, becoming brown as stubbles, with only a sprig
or tuft of green useless vegetation observable in them; the grain crop
likewise totally fails when the larvæ of this chaffer feeds in the
field. Upon assuming their winged state, they devour the foliage of the
oak and other trees so effectually, that entire copses may be seen early
in June defoliated by their depredations. So much for their injury to
man: but now the feast of the wilding commences—the plow in April
dislodges multitudes of these long white grubs. Dogs then seek them
eagerly to eat, but they seem to be surfeited by the food; for, though
fattened at first, they afterwards become diseased, and lose their hair.
Rooks and crows are running over the ridges, busily seeking for this
larvæ; the swine find it out, and come in for their share, and having
finished here, they commence grubbing in the grass lands. The insect now
soon takes wing, and then every tree in the wood or the brake becomes a
scene of plunder and delight to all the train from the rookery—the cats
will eat him—every sparrow that flies by has a chaffer in its mouth,
captured on the wing or snatched from the spray, and now to be pecked to
pieces on the ground—the thrush feasts too, and all the poultry in the
yard are running after chaffers, or chasing each other for the prize;
and thus this insect supplies in one state or another a general feast to
many.
Surrounded as we are by wonders of every kind, and existing only by a
miraculous concurrence of events, admiration seems the natural avocation
of our being; nor is it easy to pronounce amidst such a creation what is
most wonderful. But few things appear more incomprehensible than the
constant production and reabsorption of matter, impressed upon us even
by these very dorrs. An animal falls to the ground and dies; myriads of
creatures are now summoned by a call, by an impulse of which we have no
perception, to remove it, and prepare it for a new combination; chemical
agencies, fermentation, and solution, immediately commence their actions
to separate the parts, and in a short time, of all this great body,
nothing remains but the framework or bones, perhaps a little hair or
some wool, and all the rest is departed we know not whither! Worms and
insects have done their parts; the earth has received a portion, and the
rest, converted into gases, and exhalable matters, has dispersed all
over the region, which, received into vegetable circulation, is again
separated and changed, becomes modified anew, and nourishes that which
is to continue the future generations of life. The petal of the rose;
the pulp of the peach; the azure and the gold on the wing of the insect;
all the various productions of the animal and vegetable world; the very
salts and compounds of the soil, are but the changes some other matters
have undergone, which have circulated through innumerable channels since
the first production of all things, and no particle been lost; bearing
in mind this assured truth, that all these combinations have not been
effected by chance or peculiarity of circumstances, but by the
predetermination of an Almighty Intelligence, who sees the station,
progress, and final destination of an atom, what an infinity of power
and intellective spirit does this point out! an omnipotence, which the
bodied minds of us poor creatures cannot conceive. Truly may we say,
“who can find out the Almighty to perfection?”
Our extensive cultivation of the potato furnishes us annually with
several specimens of that fine animal the death’s-head moth[64]
(acherontia atropos), and in some years I have had as many as eight
brought me in the larva or chrysalis state. Their changes are very
uncertain. I have had the larva change to a chrysalis in July, and
produce the moth in October; but generally the aurelia remains unchanged
till the ensuing summer. The larvæ or caterpillars, “strange ungainly
beasts,” as some of our peasantry call them, excite constant attention
when seen, by their extraordinary size and uncommon mien, with horns and
tail, being not unusually five inches in length, and as thick as a
finger. This creature was formerly considered as one of our rarest
insects, and doubtful if truly indigenous; but for the last twenty
years, from the profuse cultivation of the potato, is become not very
uncommon in divers places. Many insects are now certainly found in
England, which former collectors, indefatigable as they were, did not
know that we possessed; while others again have been lost to us moderns.
Some probably might be introduced with the numerous exotic plants
recently imported, or this particular food may have tended to favor the
increase of rarely existent natives; but how such a creature as this
could have been brought with any plant is quite beyond comprehension. We
may import continental varieties of potatoes, but the death’s-head moth
we have never observed to have any connexion with the tuber itself, or
inclination for it. As certain soils will produce plants by exposure to
the sun’s rays, or by aid of peculiar manures, when no pre-existent root
or germ could rationally be supposed to exist; so will peculiar and long
intervening seasons give birth to insects from causes not to be divined.
We may perhaps conclude, that some concurrence produced this sphinx, and
then its favorite food, the potato plant, nourished it, to the
augmentation of its species.