CHAPTER XXII 



THE WILD BEES OF AMERICAN FORESTS 



THE insect life of the American backwoods is not very strik- 

 ing though a portion of it (the mosquito portion, to wit) is 

 decidedly piercing. The butterfly and moth population 

 of Canada and the States is not more curious or brilliantly 

 coloured than that of England. Indeed some of the 

 butterflies so closely resemble those of England as to 

 suggest that they have been transplanted here, which it 

 is quite possible that they have. I think I have already 

 referred to a small blue butterfly, and remarked that 

 this appears to be a very common colour for butterflies 

 in all parts of the world. There are several blue butter- 

 flies in Europe, in India, and I have heard, in Africa, 

 and there is a very large and handsome one in South 

 America. 



But I have nothing worth recording concerning the 

 North American butterflies and moths, and but little 

 about other insects of this region, with one exception. 



During my stay in Michigan I associated for some 

 time with two professional hunters and trappers, a race 

 even at that time fast dying out; for the miserable 

 shack and whisky-bar loafer that now passes by that 

 name is no more like the old backwoodsman than a 

 kite is like an eagle. 



The two men I refer to had been trappers from boy- 

 hood and were splendid types of their class. Long, the 

 elder, by a transposition of his names familiarly called 

 " Long Jake," was a man in the prime of life, six feet 

 four inches in height, broad, and loose-limbed, but of 



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