NOTES OF A READER

HISTORY OF INSECTS.

The Family Library, No. 7. Library of Entertaining Knowledge, Part 6.—Insect Architecture.

At present we can only notice these works as two of the most delightful volumes that have for some time fallen into our hands, and as possessing all the merits which characterize the previous portions of the Series. Our cognizance of them, in a collected form, must rest till the other half appears; in the meantime a few flying extracts will prove amusing:—

Bees without a Queen.

These humble creatures cherish their queen, feed her, and provide for her wants. They live only in her life, and die when she is taken away. Her absence deprives them of no organ, paralyzes no limb, yet in every case they neglect all their duties for twenty-four hours. They receive no stranger queen before the expiration of that time; and if deprived of the cherished object altogether, they refuse food, and quickly perish. What, it may be asked, is the physical cause of such devotion? What are the bonds that chain the little creature to its cell, and force it to prefer death, to the flowers and the sunshine that invite it to come forth and live? This is not a solitary instance, in which the Almighty has made virtues, apparently almost unattainable by us, natural to animals! For while man has marked, with that praise which great and rare good actions merit, those few instances in which one human being has given up his own life for another—the dog, who daily sacrifices himself for his master, has scarcely found an historian to record his common virtue.—Family Library.

Cleanliness of Bees.

It furnishes a subject of serious consideration, as well as an argument for a special providence, to know, that the accurate Reaumur, and other naturalists, have observed, that when any kind of insect has increased inordinately, their natural enemies have increased in the same proportion, and thus preserved the balance.—Ibid.

Gnats.

There are few insects with whose form we are better acquainted than that of the gnat. It is to be found in all latitudes and climates; as prolific in the Polar as in the Equatorial regions. In 1736 they were so numerous, and were seen to rise in such clouds from Salisbury cathedral, that they looked like columns of smoke, and frightened the people, who thought the building was on fire. In 1766, they appeared at Oxford, in the form of a thick black cloud; six columns were observed to ascend the height of fifty or sixty feet. Their bite was attended with alarming inflammation. To some appearances of this kind our great poet, Spenser, alludes, in the following beautiful simile:—

In Lapland, their numbers have been compared to a flight of snow when the flakes fall thickest, and the minor evil of being nearly suffocated by smoke is endured to get rid of these little pests. Captain Stedman says, that he and his soldiers were so tormented by gnats in America, that they were obliged to dig holes in the ground with their bayonets, and thrust their heads into them for protection and sleep. Humboldt states, that "between the little harbour of Higuerote and the mouth of the Rio-Unare, the wretched inhabitants are accustomed to stretch themselves on the ground, and pass the night buried in the sand three or four inches deep, exposing only the head, which they cover with a handkerchief."

After enumerating these and other examples of the achievements of the gnat and musquito tribe, Kirby says, "It is not therefore incredible that Sapor, King of Persia, should have been compelled to raise the siege of Nisibis by a plague of gnats, which attacked his elephants and beasts of burden, and so caused the rout of his army; nor that the inhabitants of various cities should, by an extraordinary multiplication of this plague, have been compelled to desert them; nor that, by their power of doing mischief, like other conquerors who have been the torment of the human race, they should have attained to fame, and have given their name to bays, town, and territories." Ibid.

Leaf Caterpillars.

The design of the caterpillars in rolling up the leaves is not only to conceal themselves from birds and predatory insects, but also to protect themselves from the cuckoo-flies, which lie in wait in every quarter to deposit their eggs in their bodies, that their progeny may devour them. Their mode of concealment, however, though it appear to be cunningly contrived and skilfully executed, is not always successful, their enemies often discovering their hiding place. We happened to see a remarkable instance of this last summer (1828), in a case of one of the lilac caterpillars which had changed into a chrysalis within the closely folded leaf. A small cuckoo-fly, aware, it should seem, of the very spot where the chrysalis lay within the leaf, was seen boring through it with her ovipositor, and introducing her eggs through the punctures thus made into the body of the dormant insect. We allowed her to lay all her eggs, about six in number, and then put the leaf under an inverted glass. In a few days the eggs of the cuckoo-fly were hatched, the grubs devoured the lilac chrysalis, and finally changed into pupae in a case of yellow silk, and into perfect insects like their parent.—Library of Entertaining Knowledge.

The last extract, and all in the Library of Entertaining Knowledge signed J.R. are written by Mr. J. Rennie, whose initials must be familiar to every reader as attached to some of the most interesting papers in Mr. Loudon's Magazines. He is a nice observer of Nature, and one of the most popular writers on her phenomena.

As we treated the cuts of the last portion of the "Library of Entertaining Knowledge," rather critically, we are happy to say that the engravings of insects in the present part make ample amends for all former imperfections in that branch of the work; some of the pupae, insects, their nests, &c. are admirably executed, and their selection is equally judicious and attractive.

SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS.

Spirit-drinking appears to have attained a pretty considerable pitch in America, where, according to the proceedings of the American Temperance Society, half as many tuns of domestic spirits are annually produced as of wheat and flour; and in the state of New York, in the year 1825, there were 2,264 grist-mills, and 1,129 distilleries of whiskey. In a communication to this society from Philadelphia, it is calculated, that out of 4,151 deaths in that city in the year 1825, 335 are attributed solely to the abuse of ardent spirits!

WOOD ENGRAVING.

In early life Bewick cut a vignette for the Newcastle newspaper, from which it is calculated that more than nine hundred thousand impressions have been worked off; yet the block is still in use, and not perceptibly impaired.

AUSTRIA.

The present Emperor of Austria is a gentle, fatherly old man. We have heard none of his subjects speak of him with anything but love and affection. The meanest peasant has access to him; and, except on public occasions, he leads a simpler life than any nobleman among ourselves. It is, perhaps, less the emperor than the nobility who govern in Austria, and less the nobility than Metternich, the prince-pattern of prime-ministers.—Foreign Review.

HANGING.

The following letter tends to rectify an error which very generally prevails, namely, that it costs only thirteen-pence halfpenny to be hung. It is copied literatim et verbatim, from one made out by Mr. Ketch himself, and proves that a man cannot be hung for so mere a trifle:—

Blackwood's Magazine.

SCOTTISH POETRY.

The passion of the Scots, from whatever race derived, for poetry and music, developed itself in the earliest stages of their history. They possessed a wild imagination, a dark and gloomy mythology; they peopled the caves, the woods, the rivers, and the mountains, with spirits, elves, giants, and dragons; and are we to wonder that the Scots, a nation in whose veins the blood of all those remote races is unquestionably mingled, should, at a very remote period, have evinced an enthusiastic admiration for song and poetry; that the harper was to be found amongst the officers who composed the personal state of the sovereign, and that the country maintained a privileged race of wandering minstrels, who eagerly seized on the prevailing superstitions and romantic legends, and wove them in rude, but sometimes very expressive versification, into their stories and ballads; who were welcome guests at the gate of every feudal castle, and fondly beloved by the great body of the people.—Tytler's History of Scotland.

TO CONSTANTINOPLE,

On approaching the city about sun-rise, from the Sea of Marmora.

BERWICK.

In the thirteenth century Berwick enjoyed a prosperity, such as threw every other Scottish port into the shade; the customs of this town, at the above date, amounted to about one-fourth of all the customs of England.