Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 4 (1846).djvu/360

1526 and finally, fluttering violently and attempting to fly. Vanessa Io, V. Atalanta, Argynnis Euphrosyne: I have pinned these butterflies and placed them upon strips of cork passing across a tin box, which T kept perfectly dark and cool ; whenever I opened the box, I found the wings erect and the butterflies apparently asleep. On exposing them to the sun, all these opened and spread their wings to the sun, as though enjoying it, and after a minute's interval, fluttered, but not violently : returned to the dark, they became quiescent, and appeared to sleep as before. Bombyx mori, the moth of the silkworm : the female pinned admits the male, lays productive eggs, and lives its pe- riod without exhibiting any noticeable change. Æschna, the common large dragon- fly, when pinned, I have fed with flies, which it devours greedily : it has escaped with a thick short pin passed completely through the thorax ; thus circumstanced, it has hawked up and down for hours avoiding pursuit ; two days afterwards it has been re- taken with considerable trouble, the pin still remaining in the thorax, but its apparent health and real strength and activity not perceptibly altered. These observations are of old date, and I am not likely to renew them. — Edward Newman. Feeling of Insects. — While the subject of the feeling of insects is under discussion,>allow me to seek from some of your able correspondents a solution of the following. It is well known to all collectors of Coleoptera, that on taking a bottle in which the in- sects are travelling up the glass at their customary pace, and moving about with per- fect unconcern, and placing it in hot water, a tremendous hubbub ensues, — running, jumping, scrambling, and kicking, to the utmost extent of their powers. Now, if this could proceed from feeling their quarters unpleasantly warm, there would be no mys- tery about it ; but, as it has been so clearly proved of late, that insects have no feeling, it is inexplicable to me why it should matter to them whether the bottle be hot or cold. While pinned, moths struggle, simply from a desire to escape ; the beetles above-men- tioned, must be actuated by some other motive, as they have quite as much room after the immersion of the bottle as before it, indeed rather more, owing to the expansion of the heated glass. I have tried the above experiment some hundred times, and in the end invariably with the same result, and I believe it will succeed equally with any or- der, and at any time of the day. I shall feel grateful to any of your correspondents who will clear up my doubts, by favouring me with the true reason of the above. — George Guy on ; Richmond, Surrey, September Wth, 1846.

Description of the American variety of the common Wolf. — I beg to send you an account of the American variety of the common wolf (Lupus vulgaris), which was pre- sented to me some time ago, and if you think it deserves a place in your valuable journal, you are quite at liberty to insert it. It is a female, and was brought to Eng- land when veiy young, from the prairies of Rockford, North America ; and during confinement seemed of a very sulky disposition, evincing great fear of the human spe- cies. If any person seized its chain, it would tug in an opposite direction with great violence, endeavouring to hide itself, if possible ; but it never showed any disposition to act on the offensive. On the 9th of April, 1846, I was obliged to have it killed ; it is now stuffed, and forms part of my collection. It was then somewhat more than a year old, and immediately after death I took its dimensions, which are as follows : —