226 HALF HOURS WITH IXSECTS. [Packard. 



wood, luxuriate in tlie mouldering trunks. In an incredibly 

 short space of time, aided by ants and Termites, the pros- 

 trate trunks are converted by the alchemy of nature into a 

 mound of soil crowned by ferns and climbing plants, out of 

 which will spring a new growth to take the place of the for- 

 mer generation. Many tropical trees are flowering plants, 

 and immense throngs of gaudy Cetonias, Goliath beetles, 

 and others of smaller stature frequent the blossoms for pol- 

 len, and fertilize the flowers of the trees. Nature, lavish of 

 her ornaments in the tropics, hangs her stateliest trees with 

 climbing vines, creepers and strange, bizarre orchids which 

 attract multitudes of hawk moths and butterflies, whose gay 

 colors light up the sombre glades of the primitive forests. 

 Thus the forests are populated with hundreds of tliousands 

 of insect forms. 



So luxuriant and rapid is the growth of foresta in the trop- 

 ics that they apparently are in the aggregate little affected 

 by the ravages of insects. The latter on the whole rather 

 serve to prune and check the growth of portions of the tree, 

 to weed out the weaker, imperfect individuals and aid in 

 the development of the stronger, and when a tree shows 

 signs of decay to at once raze it to the ground and convert 

 it into the soil from which it sprang. 



Not so in the temperate regions of the earth, where man 

 in subduing the forest exceeds his commission and well nigh 

 exterminates it, leaving but scattered patches of the original 

 forest primeval. In travelling through the pine forests of 

 northern Maine, where the lumberers have made great gaps 

 in the ranks of sturdy trees which formerly crowded the 

 banks of tlie Kennebec, Penobscot, Alleguash and St. John, 

 one may walk through the woods for miles and be struck 

 with the poverty of insect life. Let him in a warm July or 

 August day come out into a clearing where the lumberer's 

 camp or lonely farm house is shaded by scattered trees, and 

 he will be astonished at the number and variety of insect 



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