The Animal Kingdom Volume 13; Arranged in Conformity with Its Organization (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1832 Excerpt: ...and grow on the exterior of these caterpillars, and at their expence. Their skin is tight, smooth, and shiny, as if it had been wetted. Their colour is of a dirty white, with a broad band of obscure green on the back, and some shades of the same colour on the sides. Degeer has remarked that their posterior extremity remained engaged in the cocoon in which they were born. The Stepkanus we have figured from Mr. Westwood, and which that gentleman considers to be new, under the name of Braziliensis, is of a shining black colour, with the posterior tibiae dilated in the centre and at the tip: it is from Brazil. The insect which Mr. Westwood distinguishes generically under the name Shegalyra, belongs to the family Ichneumonida:: the species he names Fasciipennis, is a dull black colour and hirsute, the wings whitish, transparent, with a brown band near the apex;--this insect is from Melville Island. We shall now pass on to the next tribe, the Gallicolie, in treating of which we shall confine our observations to the genus Cynips, and say a few words respecting the nature of galls in general. Geoffroy injudiciously designates under the name of diplolepet, the insects comprised by Linnaeus in his genus cynips, and applies his last denomination to other hymenoptera, there ranged with the ichneumons. He supposes that those vegetable excrescences, called galls, are equally produced by one and the other. Naturalists, however, of other countries have followed the Linnaean nomenclature, and M. Latreille very properly imitates their example, reserving to the insect whose pricking gives rise to the galls, their primitive designation of cynips. The name of Diplopus he has thought proper to suppress, because, in consequence of its injudicious employment by Fabricius, it has e..