THE PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOGIST. 



59 



ture, as it were, instead of continually keeping them 

 in confinement until they spin, as we have described 

 in our last article. The place selected for this 

 open air treatment of the larvae should have been 

 already, during the preceding year, cleared of weeds 

 and grass, as well as of such kinds of trees that are 

 inapplicable for the purpose. The trees that are to 

 be used are deprived of all their high branches so 

 that, when trimmed down, they do not much ex- 

 ceed eight feet in height; this is for greater con- 

 venience and security, and enables a person with 

 merely the 'assistance of a stool or bench to reach 

 the larvae at all times. 



If such a place is selected in the vicinity of 

 dwellings, care must be taken that smoke or of- 

 fensive smells do not come in contact with the 

 larvae, as these are very susceptible and badly af- 

 fected by such and similar influences. It is also 

 stated that the blowing of horns, the ringing of 

 bells, and the beating of drums in their immediate 

 vicinity, aifect the larva adversely, and is to bo 

 avoided. In Japan, where, if report be true, so 

 much of this kind of thing is forever going on, on 

 the slightest or no pretence at all, this advice is 

 no doubt seasonable and timely. The larvffi arc 

 easily transferred to the trees by tying the twigs 

 on which they sit, and have hitherto been reared, 

 to the branches, when they readily transfer them- 

 selves to these latter. For protection from ants, 

 a native preparation is smeared on the trunks 

 of the trees. For the first three or four days care 

 must be taken to prevent the access of ichncumo- 

 nt'dee, or wasps, since it is found that, if no care is 

 taken to avoid their attacks at first, the first comers 

 bring afterwards swarms of their fellows, and a con- 

 sequent demolition attends the brood. Bird-lime 

 is used as a preventive of the attacks of ichneu- 

 mon wasps. The depredations of birds are avoided 

 by fastening »;ticks to the highest branches of the 

 trees, from which depend white strings with strips 

 of white paper attached to them. Old nets of va- 

 rious kinds are also thrown more or le.ss completely 

 over the trees, and are found of use in protecting 

 the larvae against their various enemies. To a tri e 

 of say ten feet height, an allowance of fifty larvra 

 is given ; its leafiness is, however, naturally taken 

 into consideration. The care of a single person 

 suffices for a plantation of this kind, but it requires 

 the early attendance of such a one, since the birds, 

 etc., choose principally the early morning for their 

 visits. As soon as the cocoons are formed, the 

 twigs to which they are fostenod are cut oft' with 

 scissors and they are then carefully hung on ex- 

 tended lines. They are taken from the trees thus 

 early, in order to avoid the depredations of field 

 and wood-mice, foxes and crows. It often happens 

 that some cocoons are left hanging on the trees with- 

 out being collected; the moths which in due time 

 escape from these become the parents of a fresh 

 brood of larvae as in a wild state. In this way a 

 plantation is frequently self-sustaining for a longer 

 or shorter period of time. On the Island Kin-sin, 

 and in certain districts of Nippon, the '■ oak-worm " 

 occurs in its natural or wild state, and there are 



many villages in which the principal occupation of 

 the women and children is to gather its cocoons in 

 the bushes, a business in which a good deal depends 

 upon luck, and which has at times yielded Japanese 

 fortunes to a lucky poor person or servant. Owing 

 to the peculiar leafing periods of the trees in Japan, 

 it is stated that no harm is done to them by the 

 consumption of their leaves by the larvae of the 

 "oak-worm." 



■ » ■ 



A Difficulty in Studying Insects. 



A principal difficulty presented to the uninitiated 

 in the study of Entomology, appears to us to lie 

 in the comprehension of specific existence and in- 

 variability. It is so easy to understand that 'the 

 young of the animals resemble their parents, but 

 apparently so difficult to comprehend, that this rule 

 is equally valid in Insects and is, in fact, a broad 

 zoological principle. The flies on the window pane, 

 which usually belong to two or three distinct species, 

 arc generally looked upon as one; the difl'erences 

 in size being regarded as the eifect of different 

 stages in individual growth. The existence of the 

 metamorphoses also tends to confuse partial obser- 

 vers, of all others the hardest to understand the real 

 position of Nature's affairs. In an imperfect obser- 

 vation these think they have discovered a truth, and 

 from thenceforth all reasoning and demonstration 

 are apt to be rejected in favor of the erroneous tes- 

 timony of their vision. Large storehouses filled 

 with grain are to be found in the principal seaboard 

 cities on the Atlantic Coast, and the grain moth and 

 grain weevil are a matter of yearly production, yet 

 the men who have charge of this grain — grain mea- 

 surers, store-house keepers and the like — still re- 

 gard the weevil as the same insect with the moth, 

 merely in a different state or form, and both as ori- 

 ginating spontaneously; as if, as it were, the grain 

 literally took to itself wings and flew away, much as 

 the Bible tells us is the case with earthly riches. 



But if we can only convince ourselves, that the 

 issues of any one fly or moth re.semble and are spe- 

 cilioally identical with their parent we at once bring 

 order out of what before was a chaos, where butter- 

 flies, flies and beetles existed as creations bound by 

 no natural laws, but ready, at the beck of an invi- 

 sible enchanter, to take unto themselves shapes im- 

 possible to be deduced from their present appear- 

 ance. Wonderful as are the real metamorphoses 

 of insects, the Naturalist can predicate them from 

 his experience and observation, and know when the 

 tiny existence has reached its tether and the flut- 

 tering atom, with its last pulsation, obeys the com- 

 mon law and becomes resolved into the elements. 

 Even those Naturalists, as yet few in number, who 

 profess the Derivative Theory of Creation, require 

 their follower.? first to understand the invariability 

 of species and the condition of specific existence, 

 before requiring them to unlearn their truthful les- 

 son to take up the teachings of a school which must 

 ever appeal from facts to fancies, from actualities 

 to prol3abilities,and whose theories depend for their 

 construction so greatly on those parts of speech 

 known as the auxilliary verbs. g. 



