196 



HALF HOURS WITH INSECTS. 



[Packard. 



Fig. UG. 



while later still in warm days in November and sometimes 

 every winter month, and in early, preternaturally warm 

 spring daj's, the male canker worm flutters helplessly about 

 our orchards and fences. The tiger beetles (Cicindela ; Fig, 

 149, C. sex-guttata) are essentially field insects, loving the 

 sandy banks of streams, the yig. ui. 

 roadside and sunn}' paths ; and 

 the different months of spring 

 and summer witness the arri- 

 val of different species. 



When a tree is separated 

 from its fellows and left stand- 

 ing in a field, it becomes the 

 centre of attack of many different varieties of insects. If 

 an oak its twigs are hung with countless galls, the flies as- 

 sembling 3^ear after year stinging the leaves and branches 

 as surely as the season comes around. The same kind of 

 caterpillars annually receive their tribute of leaves, and the 



Fig. lis. 



Plusia. 



Chain moth and caterpillar. 



symmetry of the oak is maintained by the judicious pruning 

 of boring beetles and other insects, while its boughs afibrd 

 rest and shelter to the birds, which in their turn judiciouslj' 

 check the too great increase of the insect plunderers, and 

 instal a reign of conservative agencies which maintain the 

 oak in its pristine vigor and hands it down from generation 

 to generation of landed proprietors. The growth and main- 

 tenance of field crops are almost wholly regulated by the 



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