Insect architecture / [Anon].

  • Rennie, James, 1787-1867.
Date:
1830
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Insect architecture / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    a ae caused by the ox breeze-fly.. It requires six months to come to maturity, and if it is irritated it eats deeper into the flesh, sometimes causing fatal inflam- _ Inations. Grus ParasiTE IN THE SNAIL. During the summer of 1829, we discovered in the hole of a garden-post, at Blackheath, one of the larger grey snail shells (Helix aspersa, MuLuzr), with three white soft-bodied grubs, burrowing in the body of the snail. ‘They evidently, from their appear- ance, belonged to. some species of beetle, and we carefully preserved them in order to watch their economy. It appeared to us that they had attacked the snail in its strong hold, while it was laid up tor- pid for the winter; for more than half of the body was already devoured. They constructed for them- selves little cells attached to the inside of the shell and composed of a sort of fibrous matter, having no distant resemblance to shag tobacco, both in form and smell, and which could be nothing else than the remains of the snail’s body. Soon after we took _ them, appearing to have devoured all that remained of the poor snail, we furnished them with another, which they devoured in the same manner. They formed a cocoon of the same fibrous materials during the autumn, and in the end of October appeared in their perfect form, turning out to be the Drilus fla- vescens the grub of which was first discovered in France in 1824. The time of their appearance, it ‘may be remarked, coincides with the period when snails become torpid.* “en