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ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1924 



fensive but not an offensive nature ; an animal that lives in conceal- 

 ment may be sluggish and lacking in all kinds of positive personality. 

 It is always a matter of wonder to me to see enthusiasts of sport 

 standing in line for hours and hours in order to get desirable seats 

 at some athletic contest, or lovers of the spectacular waiting on the 

 curb of the sidewalk from early in the day to be sure of a place in 

 the front line of spectators when a procession is to go by. I realize, 

 however, that their temperaments are different from mine, not in 

 that they enjoy the sport or the spectacle more than I do, but in that 

 they are able to stand there so long waiting to see it. The secret is 

 that standing and doing nothing does not distress them; they are 

 still normal at the end of it, because it is normal for them to be that 

 way. So when we see animals, especially insects, doing what would 

 be torture to our patience we have only to realize that their tempera- 

 ments are different, and that the 

 thing does not distress them, be- 

 cause it is normal for them to go 

 through with it. 



In early spring those insects 

 that must always be in time for 

 the first course in nature's seasonal 

 banquet begin to arrive at the 

 feeding grounds. Nature, how- 

 ever, assumes no responsibility of 

 calendar dates; the guests may be 

 present, but if bad weather takes 

 precedence, the food will not be 

 served till warmer temperatures 

 prevail. The guests must wait 

 with empty stomachs. As above intimated, though, " patience " is 

 a term not to be applied to insects literally, since it implies volun- 

 tary submission to irksome necessity. With insects, passive en- 

 durance is a physiological state, a matter of constitutional 

 temperament. But is it not so with patient people, is not their 

 placidity due to constitutional physiological conditions that allow 

 them to be so? A person undergoing an operation under an 

 anesthetic is a " patient " only in the technical terms of the hospital ; 

 an insect quietly submitting to adverse conditions of its environment 

 is submissive because it lacks a stimulus to be otherwise, it is under 

 a physiological anesthetic. 



Among the earliest of the spring arrivals in the Northern 

 States and in Canada are curious little insects that come out of 

 the ground, sometimes during warm spells in January and Febru- 

 ary, but mostly during March and April. They are to be found 



Pig. 1. — A female spring cankerworm 

 moth resting on dead spur of an 

 apple tree (X 2%) 



