Lampyris fire-fly, the Mouehe lumineuse of the French, delights in the warm damp of the jungle. The fire-flies :assemble around particular trees. Elater ccenosus, Hope, and other species, in Nepal, frequent the oak, the alder, and the willow.
A species Of Epeira, a large red and black spider, about Monghir on the Ganges, form gigantic webs, stretching across the paths, sufficiently strong to offer considerable opposition to a traveller. The reticulated part of the webs are of a bright yellow colour, and about five feet in diameter, but have a stretch of ten to twenty feet, including the great guy ropes, by which it is fastened to some neighbouring tree or clump. of bamboos. The spider sits in the centre waiting for its prey. One of them when expanded measured six inches across the legs ; and Captain Sherwill found a species of Neetarinia entangled in one of their webs.
The beetles which most attract attention from their size and beauty are the Buprestidm and Longi comes. The Anthribida3 abound in the Malay Archi pelago, and, like the Longicornes, have very long antennte. The Eupholi of the Papuan Islands and the Pachyrhynchi of the Philippines arc living jewels.
The butterflies, moths and sphynxes belong to the Lepidoptera, of which a greater number of species are disseminated throughout the world than of any other insect order, and many of them are of great beauty. Phalena patroclus of Burma is a magnificent moth.
The larvm of Dipsas isocrates, a lepidopterous insect, occupy the interior of a pomegranate, which they enclose in a woven web to prevent it falling.
Deiopeia pulehella, an insect common in British India, feeds on the kernel of the seed of Phyro stigma venenosum, which contains a poisonous principle, and the excrement of its larvae contains the principle of the bean unaltered.
The curious wood-moth, the Sack Trager of the Germans, the dalone kattea of the Singhalese, and kundi puchi of the Tamil people, are species of Eurneta, E. Cramerii, Westwood, and E. Temple tonii, I Vestwood. They gather and cement around them a bundle of thorns, which they bind together by threads so as to form a secure case. The male
at the close of the pupal rest escapes from one end of the case, but to the female it is a covering for life.--Tennent's Ceylon.
Detiens, an insect of the grasshopper tribe, is kept by the Chinese in cages for fighting. They live for months in captivity. — G. Bennett, p. 271.
Crickets are pitted against each other by the Chinese, and largely betted on.
The skip-jack beetle is a species of the Elateridm, which flies into the houses in the evening. When laid on its back, it suddenly turns itself over with a clicking sound.
The activity, intelligence, and ingenuity dis played by ants have attracted attention in all ages. The curious ant, Drepanognathus saltator, Jerdon (or Harpegnathus saltator, Jerdon), one of a genus of the Peninsula of India, in Malabar, and Mysore, has the name saltator from its making most surprising jumps when alarmed or disturbed. It is very pugnacious, and bites and stings very severely. It makes its nest under ground, generally about the roots of some plant. Its society does not consist of many individuals. It appears to feed on insects, which it often seizes alive.
CEcophylla smaragdina is a green ant of the Malay Archipelago. It is rather large, and a long-legged, active, and intelligent-looking crea ture. They live in large nests, formed by glueing together the edges of leaves, especially of Zingi beraceous plants. When their nest is touched, a number of the ants rush out, apparently in a great rage, stand erect, and make a loud rattling noise by tapping against the leaves.
The three families of ants, Formicidm, Poneridm, and Myrinicidm, comprise many genera and a large number of species. Their stages of life, egg, larva, pupa, imago, are the same in all, and they have workers, imperfect females (which constitute the great majority), males, and perfect females.
Ants kill off a great number of caterpillars and other small insects.
Forel, examining one large nest, found m6re than twenty-eight dead insects brought in per minute, which would be 100,000 destroyed in a day. Many ants collect seeds.—Sir J. Lubbock on Ants, p. 60.