526 



THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



diflFerent ones within a few hours' tra\'el 

 of your home. Some of these are in 

 water, others underground; some in or 

 on plants, others in or on animals; some 

 only in the midst of the near swamp or 

 on the top of the hill over yonder; others 

 in your garden or even in your house. 

 Insects keep "cows," building sheds to 

 cover them, make gardens, have slaves, 

 construct houses for themselves and 

 offspring, dig caves, hollow out wood, 

 sing songs, catch prey and have all sorts 

 of devices to keep from l)eing caught, 

 go to live with their relatives, and make 

 themselves generally interesting. What 

 a wealth of material and how neglected! 

 An earnest amateur can learn in a 

 week to recognize all the reptiles and 

 amphibians of his neighborhood. It is 

 indeed a poor nature lo^'er who can not 

 give at least some name for every com- 

 monly seen mammal within hundreds of 

 miles around him. Singly and by 

 crowds we get up and bedraggle our- 

 selves with dew to hear or see a few 

 different kinds of birds, and we mark 

 that day in red which has permitted 

 us to find a bird's nest with a few smooth, 

 splotched eggs in it. And we do well to 



do it, but . Can you give names to 



a tenth of the insects you see every year, 

 bej^ond calling most of them "bugs" 

 when really very few of them are bugs, 

 or saying that it is a "buffalo moth" 

 when really it is a beetle, or a black 

 "beetle" when really it is a roach? 

 What is that creature on your rosebush 

 singing in a .subdued treble? "Now 

 that you mention it, I do hear some- 

 thing but I have n't the faintest notion 

 what it is." Eggs? No bird's egg ever 

 laid can surpass in delicacy of coloring 

 hundreds of rjifferent kinds of insect eggs; 

 and there are the multitudinous shapes 

 and intricate carvings — not merely 

 smooth ovoids. I have probably not 

 examined one per cent of the insect eggs 



which are laid every year in my garden. 

 Have you in yours? There are a-plenty 

 there at the moment you read this. 

 Some are on the branches, others are 

 mider bark, others are placed in neat slits 

 made in stems or leaves by the mother, 

 others are undergroimd. The garden is 

 full of them now and full of insects too. 



Of course it is winter but the red and 

 black butterfly which lately emerged 

 from " a pale green house studded with 

 golden nails" is the only one of our 

 insects which is definitely known to leave 

 us when winter comes. They are here 

 as eggs, as larA'?e, as puppe, and as adults. 

 Most of them are hard to find but that 

 is the fun of it, the training in it, the 

 dare which the insect world holds out 

 almost unchallenged. 



About the time this is published the 

 largest gathering of scientists ever held 

 in the United States will be meeting in 

 this city. What can the chemists tell 

 us about the firefly's cold light, or the 

 gall maker's sting which causes plants 

 to produce growths different from any- 

 thing which plants would ever produce 

 by themselves — often beautiful and 

 usually so definite that the maker can 

 more easily be identified by its work 

 than by its own looks? What can the 

 physicist tell us of insect flight (the curv- 

 ing of a beetle's elytron, the monoplane 

 of the house fly) or of the sounding 

 board in a male cricket's wing? Psy- 

 chologists have written galore of instincts 

 and insect activities but the campuses 

 of their colleges are full of untouched 

 material. Sharks are dissected for 

 anatomical studies, the development of 

 starfish eggs is most minutely observed 

 in order to understand embryology, 

 and hundreds of dollars are spent in 

 raising rats, mice, guinea pigs and the 

 like, for the purpose of discovering the 

 laws of inheritance. Strength to such 

 work, but . Insects have anatomies 



