130 nrjiniT to the foeest by insects. 



one or two species employed by anglers as bait, if natives of tbe 

 woods, are at least rare in shaded grounds, but multiply very rap- 

 idly after the soil is brought under cultivation. Forty or fifty 

 years ago they were so scarce in the newer parts of New England, 

 that the rustic fishermen of every village kept secret the few 

 places where they were to be found in their neighborhood, as a 

 professional mystery, but at present one can hardly turn over a 

 shovelful of rich, moist soil anywhere without unearthing several 

 of them. A very intelligent lady, born in the woods of northern 

 J^ew England, told me that, in her childhood, these worms were 

 almost unknown in that region, though anxiously sought for by 

 the anglers, but that they increased as the country was cleared, 

 and at last became so numerous in some places, that the water of 

 springs, and even of shallow wells, which had formerly been ex- 

 cellent, was rendered undrinkable by the quantity of dead worms 

 that fell into them. The increase of the robin and other small 

 birds which follow the settler when he has prepared a suitable 

 home for them, at last checked the excessive multipUcation of the 

 worms and abated the nuisance. 



The carnivorous, and often herbivorous, insects render another 

 important service to man by consuming dead and decaying ani- 

 mal and vegetable matter, the decomposition of which would oth- 

 erwise fill the air with effluvia noxious to health. Some of them, 

 the grave-digger beetle, for instance, bury the small animals in 

 which they lay their eggs, and thereby prevent the escape of the 

 gases disengaged by putrefaction. The prodigious rapidity of de- 

 velopment in insect life, the great numbers of the individuals in 

 many species, and the voracity of most of them while in the larva 

 state, justify the appellation of nature's scavengers which has been 

 bestowed upon them, and there is very little doubt that, in warm 

 countries, they consume a larger quantity of putrescent organic 

 matter than the quadrupeds and birds which feed upon such 

 aliment. 



Irtjv/ry to the Forest "by Insects. 



The action of the insect on vegetation, as we have thus far de- 

 scribed it, is principally exerted on smaller and less conspicuous 

 plants, and it is therefore matter rather of agricultural than of 

 geographical interest. But in the economy of the forest, European 



