scape-an effect of a character so new and beautiful, though annually recurring, that few regard it without admiration and delight.-Annals of My Village. THE PLAGUE OF FLIES. "We cannot," says Bruce, "read the history of the plagues which God brought upon Pharaoh by the hands of Moses, without being struck with a singularity, a very principal one, which attended this plague of the fly. It was not till this time, and by means of this insect, that God said he would separate his people from the Egyptians. And it would seem, that then a law was given to them, that fixed the limits of their habitation. It is well known that the land of Goshen, the possession of the Israclites, was a land of pasture, which was not tilled or sown, because it was not overflowed by the Nile. But the land overflowed by the Nile was the black earth of the valley of Egypt; and it was here that God confined the flies; for, he says, it shall be a sign of this separation of the people, which he had then made, that not one fly should be seen in the sand or pasture-ground, the land of Goshen; and this kind of soil has ever since been the refuge of all cattle emigrating from the black earth to the lower part of Atbara. Isaiah indeed says, that the fly shall be in all the desert places, and, consequently, the sands; yet this was a particular dispensation of Providence to answer a special end, the desolation of Egypt, and was not a repeal of the general law, but a confirmation of it; it was an exception for a particular purpose, and a limited time.—Isaiah vii. 18, 19. This insect is called Zimb, in modern or vulgar Arabic. It is in size very little larger than a bee, of a thicker proportion, and the wings, which are broader than those of a bee, are placed separate, like those of a fly; they are of pure gauze, without colour or spot upon them; the head is large, the upper jaw or lip is sharp, and has at the end of it a strong pointed hair of about a quarter of an inch long; the lower jaw has two of these pointed hairs, and this pencil of hairs, when joined together, makes a resistance to the finger nearly equal to that of a strong hog's bristle. Its legs are serrated in the inside, and the whole covered with brown hair, or down. It has no sting, though it seems to be rather of the bee kind; but its motion is more rapid and sudden than that of the bee, and resembles that of the gad-fly in England. There is something particular in the sound or buzzing of this insect. It is a jarring noise, together with a humming, proceeding, probably, from a vibration made with the three hairs at its snout. "As soon as this plague appears, and its buzzing is heard, all the cattle forsake their food, and run wildly about the plain, till they die, worn out with fatigue, fright, and hunger. No remedy remains but to leave the black earth, and to hasten down to the sands of Atbara; and there they remain while the rains last, this cruel enemy never daring to pursue them further. The camel, emphatically called by the Arabs, the Ship of the Desert,' though of great size and strength, and with his body covered with a thick skin, defended with strong hair, yet still he is not capable to sustain the violent punctures the fly makes with his pointed proboscis. He must lose no time in removing to the sands of Atbara; for, when once attacked by this fly, his body, head, and legs, swell out into large bosses, which break and putrefy, to the certain destruction of the creature. "Even the elephant and rhinoceros, who, by reason of their enormous bulk, and the vast quantity of food and water they always need, cannot shift to desert and dry places as the season may require, are obliged to roll themselves in mud or mire, which, when dry, coats them over like armour, and enables them to stand their ground against this winged assassin." IN Jamaica, at some seasons of the year, the fire-flies are seen in the evening in great abundance. When they settle on the ground the bullfrog greedily devours them, which seems to have given origin to a curious, though very cruel, method of destroying these animals:-if red-hot pieces of charcoal be thrown towards them in the dusk of the evening, they leap at them, and hastily swallow them, mistaking them for fire-flies, and are burnt to death.-DARWIN, QUICK TRAVELLING. THE Mite makes 500 steps in a second, or 30,000 in a minute. Allowing the horse to move at an equal ratio, he would perform 1022 miles an hour. The journey from London to Birmingham would then occupy but six minutes and a fraction. St. James's Chronicle. There is another insect which may in some measure rival the above in the celerity of its motion, and is itself unrivalled in strength, in proportion to its size. Although it is generally disliked, and has not a very fair reputation, yet to the eye of the naturalist it is rather a pleasing and interesting object. Its form, as examined by the microscope, is extremely elegant, and has an appearance as if clad in coat of mail. It has a small head, with large eyes, a clean and bright body, beset at each segment with nume rous sharp and shining bristles. All its motions indicate agility and sprightliness, and its muscular power is so extraordinary, as justly to excite our astonishment: indeed, we know no other animal whose strength can be put in competition with (its name must come out at last) that of a Common FLEA, for on a moderate computation, it can leap to a distance, at least 200 times the length of its own body. A flea will drag after it a chain 100 times heavier than itself, and will eat ten times its own weight of provisions in a day. Mr Boverich, an ingenious watchmaker, who some years ago lived in the Strand, London, exhibited to the public a little ivory chaise with four wheels, and all its proper apparatus, and a man sitting on the box, all of which were drawn by a single flea. He made a small landau, which opened and shut by springs, with six horses harnessed to it, a coachman sitting on the box, and a dog betwen his legs, four persons in the carriage, two footmen behind it, and a postilion riding on one of the fore-horses, which was also easily drawn along by a flea. He likewise had a chain of brass about two inches long, containing 200 links, with a hook at one end, and a padlock and key at the other, which the flea drew very nimbly along. Something of the same kind is now exhibiting in London.-Encyclo. Edin. THE MOLE CRICKET, (Gryllotalpa vulgaris.) THE Mole-cricket is one of the largest British insects. It is not often met with, owing to its secluded habits; taking up its abode in marshes and swampy places, where, in the evening, during the month of April, its shrill cry leads to its detection. It principally lives under ground, and the fitness of its anterior feet to its habits and pursuits, is a wonderful provision of nature. The following description of its form and mode of living is taken from the work of those celebrated naturalists, Kirby and Spence. The most remarkable burrower amongst perfect insects, is that singular animal the Mole-cricket (Gryllotalpa vulgaris, Latr.). This creature is endowed with wonderful strength, particularly in its thorax and fore-legs. The former is a very hard and solid shell or crust, covering like a shield the trunk of the animal; and the latter are uncommonly fitted for burrowing, both by their strength and construction. The shanks are very broad, and terminate obliquely in four enormous sharp teeth, like so many fingers: the foot consists of three joints, the two first being broad and tooth-shaped, and pointing in an opposite direction to the teeth of the shank; and the last small and armed at the extremity with two short claws. This foot is placed inside the shank, so as to resemble a thumb, and perform the office of one. The direction and motion of these hands, as in moles, is outwards; thus enabling the animal most effectually to remove the earth when it burrows. By the help of these powerful instruments, it is astonishing how instantaneously it buries itself. This creature works under ground, like a field-mouse, raising a ridge as it goes; but it does not throw up heaps like its namesake the mole. They will in this manner undermine whole gardens; and thus in wet and swampy situations, in which they delight, they excavate their curious apart ments. This insect is supposed to be luminous, as the following extract from the same authors will testify. Should any attentive observer of nature be able to ascertain the fact, it might remove that superstition which ignes fatui have raised in the unlettered mind. Besides the insects here enumerated, others may be luminous which have not been hitherto suspected of being so. This seems proved by the following fact. A learned friend has informed me, that when he was curate of Ickleton, Cambridgeshire, in 1780, a farmer of that place of the name of Simpringham, brought to him a Molecricket, and told him that one of his people, seeing a Jack o'lantern, pursued it and knocked it down. when it proved to be this insect, and the identical specimen shown to him. This singular fact, (say the authors before mentioned,) while it renders it probable that some insects are luminous which no one has imagined to be so, seems to afford a clue to the, at least, partial explanation of the very obscure subject of ignes fatui, and to show that there is considerable ground for the opinion long ago maintained by Ray and Willoughby, that the majority of these supposed meteors are no other than luminous insects. That the large varying lambent flames mentioned by Beccaria, to be very common in some part of Italy, and the luminous globe seen by Dr Shaw, cannot be thus explained, is obvious. These were probably electrical phenomena: certainly not explosions of phosphuretted hydrogen, as has been suggested by some, which must necessarily have been momentary. But that the ignis fatuus mentioned by Derham as having been seen by himself, and which he describes as flitting about a thistle, was, though he seems of a different opinion, no other than some luminous insect, I have little doubt. Mr Sheppard informs me that, travelling one night between Stamford and Grantham on the top of the stage, he observed for more than ten minutes a very large ignis fatuus in the low marshy grounds, which had every appearance of being an insect. The wind was very high: consequently, had it been a vapour, it must have been carried forward in a direct line; but this was not the case. It had the same motions as a tipula (a gnat) flying upwards and downwards, backwards and forwards, sometimes appearing as settled, and sometimes as hovering in the air. Whatever be the true nature of these meteors, of which so much is said, and so little known, it is singular how few modern instances of their having been observed are on record. Dr Darwin declares, that though in the course of a long life he had been out in the night, and in the places where they are said to appear, times without number, he had never seen anything of the kind; and from the silence of other philosophers of our own times, it should seem that their experience is similar. Those who wish to obtain a speeimen of this curious insect, may do so by tracing out its cry, which is similar to that of a small bird, in a swampy situation, in the month of April. The writer has obtained several in this way, in the fresh marshes near the banks of the Medway, Kent. J. W. ticular description is here given, reduced from a more technical one by Kirby and Spence. "The body of the FEMALE BEE, or QUEEN, is considerably longer than that of either the drone or the worker. The prevailing colour in all three is the same, black, or black-brown; but with respect to the female this does not appear to be invariably the case. Réaumur affirms, after describing some differences of colour in different individuals of this sex, that a queen may always be distinguished, both from the workers and males, by the colour of her body, and if this observation be restricted to the colour of certain parts of her body, it is correct. The head is not larger than that of the workers; but the tongue is shorter and more slender. The jaws are forked, and do not jut out like theirs into a prominent angle; they are of the colour of pitch, with a red tinge, and terminate in two teeth, the outer being pointed, and the inner blunt. The upper-lip is of a tawny yellow; and the feelers are of the same colour as the jaws. In the trunk, the scales that defend the base of the wings are also of a red pitchy colour. The wings reach only to the tip of the third division of the abdomen. The feet THE NATURAL HISTORY OF and legs are of a tawny red, and the hinder legs are flattened above, and covered with short hairs, having neither the marginal fringe of hairs for carrying the masses of pollen, nor the pecten, (or comb.) The abdomen is considerably longer than the head and trunk taken together, receding from the trunk in a conical form, and becoming rather sharp at the extreme end. The divisions of the back are. tawny yellow at the tip; covered with very short, pale, shining, close-pressed hairs; the first division being very short, and co- | vered with longer hairs. The under divisions of the body, except the last, which is black, are of a tawny red, or deep tawny yellow, and covered with soft longer hairs. The sheath, which contains the sting, is curved. The MALE BEE, or DRONE, is quite the reverse of the Queen; his body being thick, short, and clumsy, and rounded at each extremity. It is covered also, as to the head and trunk, with close hairs. The head is flattened and rounded. The tongue is shorter and more slender than that of the female; and the jaws, though nearly of the same shape, are smaller. The eyes are very large, meeting at the back part of the head. In the space between them are placed the feelers, consisting of fourteen joints, the fourth and fifth being very short, and not easily distinguished. The trunk is large. The wings are longer than the body. The legs are short and slender, and the hinder ones are covered with hairs, which are hardly visible; the hindfeet are furnished underneath with thick-set bristles, which they use to brush their bodies. The claw-joints are tawny. The abdomen is heart-shaped, very short, being scarcely so long as the head and trunk together, consisting of seven divisions, which are tawny at their point. The first division is longer than any of the succeeding ones, and covered above with rather long hairs. The second and third divisions of the back are apparently naked; but under a strong magnifying glass, in a certain light, some close-pressed hairs may be perceived;-the remaining ones are hairy, the last three being bent inwards. The divisions of the belly are very narrow, hairy, and tawny. The body of the WORKERS is oblong. The head triangular; the jaws are prominent, so as to terminate the head in an angle, toothless, and forked: the lip and feelers are black. In the trunk the scales are black, The wings extend only to the end of the fourth division of the abdomen. The legs are all black, with the feet only rather browner. The second joint of the hind legs is naked above, but furnished on the outside with hairs which lie close to it, and armed at the end with the comb. The upper surface of the hinder-legs is also hairy; underneath, they are furnished with a brush of stiff hairs, set in rows: at the base, they are armed with stiff bristles. The abdomen is a little longer than the head and trunk together; oblong, and rather heart-shaped. It is covered with longish pale yellow hairs: the first division is short, with longer hairs; the base of the three intermediate divisions is covered, and as it were, banded, with pale hairs. The top of the three intermediate under divisions of the body is rather tawny, and their base is distinguished on each side by waxpockets of an irregular square form, covered by a thin membrane. The following description is founded upon that given in the Introduction to Entomology, by Kirby and Spence, where a very extended discussion may be perused on all the difficult points in the natural history of the bee, written in a manner which cannot fail to captivate even a cursory reader. These delightful writers have extracted from two authors, Réaumur and the elder Huber, and given other observations to elucidate the history of the Bee, from which the following has been abridged. "The society of a hive of bees, besides the young brood, consists of one female, or queen, several hun |