810 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



its the yellow flowers of the golden-rod oftener than those of the aster. 

 The same authon* also observed a harmless Egerian moth which de- 

 ceived the sharp eye of a trained entomologist by its resemblance to a 

 wasp, and asks why a bird may not be equally deceived. Miss Sarah 

 P. Monks f observed a case of mimetic coloring in tadpoles, their tails 

 precisely resembling the leaves of an aquatic plant, Ludovidgia. 



Miss Mary E. Murtfeldt \ having noticed that the butterfly, Pyra- 

 meis Ilunteri, always deposited its eggs on the plant Antennaria, she 

 was surprised to find a number of. larvse of this butterfly on Artemisia. 

 The customary plant being rare in the immediate vicinity, the butter- 

 fly had been misled by the surface resemblance of the white, cottony 

 leaves of the Artemisia to those of the accustomed food-plant. In this 

 case the larva? all died. 



An unquestionable fact has been finally established by recent 

 methods of observation on the habits of insects and other animals, 

 and that is that individuals of the same species vary in intelligence ; 

 that they are not automata ; that they are not impelled by a blind in- 

 stinct to perform certain acts with unerring accuracy, but, on the con- 

 trary, that they vary and often greatly vary in their ability to provide 

 for their young, in their skill to secure sufficient food, in their wit to 

 avoid danger in other words, they make blunders and mistakes and 

 involve their progeny and even their colony in ruin. This individual 

 variation in intelligence is brought out very clearly by a patient series 

 of observations made by Drs. G. W. and E. G. Peckham * on the spe- 

 cial senses of wasps. They not only repeated many of the experi- 

 ments of Sir John Lubbock, but many new and ingenious experiments 

 were devised. Their studies were for the purpose of investigating the 

 mental power, sense of hearing, color, direction, memory, emotion, 

 power of communication, general intelligence, etc. An interesting re- 

 sult of their painstaking work was the determination of individual dif- 

 ferences as to the faculty of memory and power of distinguishing 

 color and direction. This kind of study of the habits of insects has 

 brought to light features of the most surprising character. The re- 

 markable studies of Sir John Lubbock, Dr. Moggridge, and others in 

 Europe, have been paralleled in this country not only by the observa- 

 tions above quoted, but notably by the labors of Rev. 11. C. McCook || 

 in his studies of the American ants and spiders. In various papers 

 published in the "Proceedings of the Philadelphia Academy of Natu- 

 ral Sciences" and in the "American Naturalist," be has shown many 

 extraordinary and curious features in the life-histories of these ani- 

 mals. The great variety and extent of his work must be my excuse 

 for not referring to it in detail. 



Professor G. F. Atkinson, A in studying a new species of trap-door 



* " American Naturalist," vol. xiv, p. 600. f n> id -i vo1 - xii > P- 695 - 



% Ibid., vol. xvii, p. 196. * Historical Society of Wisconsin. 



I "American Naturalist," vol. xii, p. 431. A Ibid., vol. xx, p. 583. 



