92 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE 



Cuckoos of the Insect Tribe. 



Cuckoos of the insect tribe are legion, and not only parasites, 

 but often assassins, laying their eggs in the nests of other insects, fully 

 cognizant that their progeny will eat their foster brothers and sisters 

 in both egg and body form. 



The Skunk Insect. 



The saw fly unsheathes her pair of double action cross-cut and 

 splitting saws to mutilate and deposit in leaf and tender twig her 

 eggs which, when hatched, repeat the vandal act of their progenitors. 

 The saw fly is the skunk of the insect tribe, and on occasion squirts a 

 moist and acid stream on its enemies. 



As the track walker swings a warning red lantern, so the color 

 warning in the flashings of some species of black and red-winged 

 insects proclaims to marauding freebooters that spiny hairs sting and 

 acid flesh sickens, thus for the time being postponing the inevitable. 



Queen of Night. 



The Queen of Night, the Luna, as well as the hawk moths, in 

 appearance like humming birds, were among our richest treasures 

 'mid a collection that grew apace as our interest in the wide field of 

 lepidoptera increased. We aimed to know the genealogical tree from 

 deepest rootlet to topmost twig of every specimen in our little cabinet, 

 which was jealously guarded within protecting glass from rodent and 

 moth. The evolution from egg to worm or larva and from larva to 

 pupa or chrysalid, thence to fly and again back to egg, was a fascinat- 

 ing study. Head, thorax, abdomen, antennae, two winged and four 

 winged, four legged and six legged, all came in unending procession 

 under the microscope, w r hich opened wide the door to a heretofore 

 closed world. 



Though unable to attest by sight that the industrious ant was 

 as well a foster mother, carrying within its protecting nest the eggs 

 of other insects and rearing them with her own, it so read and we 

 accepted it as we did many another surprising statement that we had 

 neither time nor ability to prove, such as the ant keeping milch cow 

 aphides and slaves. 



One most interesting example of concealment was found on an 

 elm tree; a caterpillar having a rough serrated bulging skin, an exact 

 counterpart of the ridges in the elm leaf even the sharp eyes of the 

 birds seemed but rarely to pierce this environmental disguise. 



The Tramp Insect. 



Tramp by name and nature one might label the walking stick. 

 The cares of motherhood sit lightly on her shoulders, as she drops 

 her eggs helter-skelter in grass, woodland, or bog, and but few escape 

 the maw of the hungry ones. 



It was rare joy to thus roam in this minor within a major 

 world and watch in sunlight and shadow, in dense wood and open 



