FACTS ABOUT INSECTS. 121 



has fastened its eggs to a plant which has the odor of 

 meat, and the young, when hatched, died. 



A lady in Missouri, who watches insects closely, 

 found that a certain butterfly which deposits its eggs 

 upon the wormwood plant, when this plant was scarce, 

 selected a kind of artemisia, which in some respects 

 resembles the wormwood. When the larvae hatched 

 they died of starvation, because the artemisia was not 

 their proper food. 



The tribe of insects, which includes bees and ants, 

 embraces other kinds that attract attention. Never kill 

 a wasp until you have seen the ingenious house she 

 has built, and which she has covered with sixteen 

 thicknesses of paper. Long before paper was invented, 

 and when men were scratching their thoughts on bark 

 and chips and skins, this little cousin of the bee and 

 the ant was gathering the fiber of wood, chewing 

 and spreading it out as thin as a letter sheet. The 

 wasp was the first paper-maker. 



Wait a moment while you dip your pen in ink. 

 What is good black ink made of? One thing very 

 necessary to it is an acid that is found in oak-galls. 

 This acid is called gallic acid. What makes the oak- 

 galls, or oak-apples, as they are commonly called? 

 Toward the close of the growing season, our red oak 

 sometimes bears a large number of these galls. The 

 galls that help to make the best ink come from China. 



The gall is not a natural fruit of the oak, but is pro- 

 duced by an insect ; in some cases by an aphis or 

 louse, in other cases by a gall-fly which is cousin to 

 the wasp. This insect stings the oak-twig to make a 

 place for its egg. Around this wound with an egg in 



