No. l6.] INSECTS OF CONNECTICUT. 19 



areas devoted to a single crop; by carrying insects from one 

 part of the world to another in connection with the trans- 

 portation of products carried on by his commercial enterprise. 

 Usually, when insects are transported to a new country, their 

 parasites and other natural enemies are left behind ; hence, when 

 they become established, they are able to multiply with great 

 rapidity, and often do much damage. Such has been the history 

 of the gypsy moth, the elm-leaf beetle, the cabbage worm, the 

 San Jose scale, and a score or more of other pests. 



Some of the bees, wasps, and ants (order Hymenoptera) 

 and the termites or white ants (order Neuroptera) are social 

 in their habits, and live together in colonies, each colony occupy- 

 ing a nest. There is one queen in each colony, sometimes more 

 than one, and the queen lays the eggs to increase the colony. 

 In these communities of social insects the males are often called 

 drones. Their function is to fertilize the queen ; there are usually 

 complemental females which are capable of reproduction in case 

 the queen perishes. The great majority of the members of these 

 colonies are called workers or neuters, but are really females 

 imperfectly developed. They serve the community by feeding 

 and caring for the young and by building the nests. 



Most insects are not social, and do not live together in 

 colonies, though many are gregarious to the extent that those 

 hatching from a single egg-mass deposited by the female parent 

 remain and feed together during a portion or the whole of their 

 larval development. Many insects are solitary, and are not 

 found together at all except perhaps when in search of food. 



DISTRIBUTION OF INSECTS, AND THE LIFE ZONES OF CONNECTICUT. 



It has long been known that natural laws govern the dis- 

 tribution of native insects as well as of other animals and plants. 

 For instance, we find vegetation on the mountain tops quite 

 different from that growing in the valleys, and the flora of a 

 desert in no wise resembles that of a swamp. In like manner 

 we should expect to find faunal areas containing certain forms 

 or species of insects which differ from the species occurring in 

 other regions where the climatic conditions are different. In- 

 sects of the marsh along the coast are not the same as those of 

 the high mountains, and those of the tropics are entirely dif- 



