306 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE. - 



rewarded by witnessing one of the 

 most remarkable morphological trans- 

 formations that occur in the whole 

 realm of living organisms . 



Observations on Grasshoppers and 

 Ants. 



Dorchester, Mass. 

 To the Editor: 



Do you remember that several years 

 ago I wrote to you, asking why grass- 

 hoppers prefer white dresses to darker 

 or colored ones? 



I heard, not long ago, of an inter- 

 esting case where a lady found that 

 instead of preferring white, grasshop- 

 pers were particularly attracted to a 

 certain pink dress of hers — not all pink 

 dresses but a certain pink one of cot- 

 ton material. While she found very 

 few on her white or other dresses, after 

 a walk in this pink one she would be 

 fairly covered with them, and before 

 having the dress laundered the plaits 

 always had to be ripped to get out 

 the dead grasshoppers ! 



Isn't that strange? Do you suppose 

 it had anything to do with the material 

 or was it only a certain shade of pink? 



We spent a few very pleasant weeks 

 this summer in Wrentham, Massachu- 

 setts. The country about there is very 

 pretty and interesting, and the lay of 

 the land rather peculiar. The fields 

 were not level or even gently rolling 

 but full of steep, high mounds which 

 we called horsebacks, and these were 

 alternated with deep depressions like 

 punch bowls. I found many flowers 

 there which were new to me and there 

 was a great variety of birds. 



My sister saw an interesting scene 

 one day which took place between two 

 colonies of ants. One colony was of 

 ordinary black ants, the other of red. 

 The two colonies were a long distance 

 apart, separated by the steep slope of 

 a hill, but the red ants from the higher 

 nest were making a raid on the nest 

 of their neighbors below and carrying 

 away their young, as I suppose, which 

 were in the quiescent stage and re- 

 sembled eggs about a quarter or an 

 eighth of an inch long. 



The black ants rushed madly about 



not seeming to know what to do or 

 how to defend their property while 

 the red ants in one continuous stream 

 carried the "eggs" from their neigh- 

 bors' nest to their own and dis- 

 appeared with them underground. 

 I have heard of ants stealing the 

 young of other species to bring up as 

 their "slaves." Is that what these were 

 doing? 



I afterwards accidentally uncovered 

 two nests, both of red ants I think, 

 and found in them great heaps of these 

 white "eggs." In one the older ants 

 immediately set to work to carry them 

 deeper into the earth and in an almost 

 incredibly short time the whole mound 

 had disappeared. In the other nest 

 there seemed to be no full grown ants 

 at all — only young ones, apparently 

 newly hatched, with wings, and a small 

 heap of "eggs." Just what were these 

 "eggs." All the young ants we found 

 were red. Do both species pass 

 through very similar stages in de- 

 velopment? 



Very sincerely yours, 



Dorothv A. Baldwin. 



Gunning For Bugs. 



Tuesday night Ralph C. Wright and . 

 a companion were out two and a half . 

 miles west of town hunting. Shortly 

 after six o'clock they heard a buzzing ! 

 and humming noise which they could ; 

 not account for, until looking up they • 

 saw the sky fairly black with large 

 beetles flying from the west toward the 

 east. There appeared to be thousands 

 of them and being curious to know 

 what they were they took a few shots 

 at them. A number were brought 

 down and one was brought to 

 this office by Mr. Wright . It proved 

 to be the common black boat shaped water 

 scavenger beetle known to scientists 

 as Tropistemus triangularis. It is one of 

 the largest beetles, being one and a 

 half inches in length. They were un- 

 doubtedly flying from the waters of 

 the Basin west of this city to some 

 other body of water east of the city.- — 

 Warren Knaus, McPherson, Kansas, 

 in "Entomological News." 



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