HAWKS OF THE INSECT WORLD 93 



meadow, the great unending procession of insect life, the alder leaf 

 case bearer staggering along under his pack, and near him a sturdy 

 caterpillar laden with a whole nest of parasitical eggs, each contain- 

 ing an embryo grave digger, which he must carry to his grave. Slen- 

 der waisted mud and digger wasps we found 'mid the insects that 

 pupate in earth cells. The list of non-silk spinning cocoon manu- 

 facturers includes many vegetivorous insects, the potato bug, wire 

 worm, crane fly, cut and tomato worm and root eating maggots. 

 There also we dug up many of the fruit eaters in the first ranks 

 of which were the curculio, the canker worm and apple maggot. The 

 elm tree sphinx (at times, the immovable) and the destructive elm 

 beetle, fortunately for the tree lover, are also earth pupaters. Tangle- 

 foot encircling the elm trunk will keep her well under foot. The regal 

 moth, the zebra caterpillar and a full line of grass diggers, all traced 

 their ancestral homes to earth catacombs. In most of our insect hunts 

 w r e found the ever busy ichneumon flies flitting from place to place, 

 one main object in life being to puncture the skin of some less active 

 insect and oviposit their death eggs broadcast among their fellows. 



Hawks of the Insect World. 



Dragon flies, as they lived their lives 'mid scurrying hordes of 

 flying victims, were in a class by themselves. The true dragon we 

 found lights with spread wings, the damsel with folded upright wings. 



Night Moths. 



In strolling through the woods close scrutiny discovered flat 

 against the bark of beech and birch the night moths, each having 

 selected the tree closest to its coloring, the sharpest eyed birds 

 often taking them for a bit of wood. A true possum insect which 

 feigns death when facing disaster is the large sphinx caterpillar, who 

 hangs perfectly motionless head downward for hours to deceive its 

 enemies. 



Beetle hunting yielded a wide quarry, whirligig, water, snout, 

 tiger, black, blister, long-horned, the smug little ladybird, the epitome 

 of bug cleanliness, water scorpions, water striders and boatmen all 

 involuntarily joined the stick pin colony. 



The great mass of insect life, aside from the stingers as exampled 

 in bee, hornet and spider, and a few spiny haired caterpillars, has no 

 protection from its enemies. Concealment through color and in 

 habitation is its strongest hold on life but at best often a broken reed. 



One Romeo of the insect world, the cricket, in season contin- 

 ually serenades Juliet with rasping chirpings which rival the Katy- 

 dids. 



Footless larvae, aphidivorous gourmands, stayed where maternity 

 left them and leeched life from contact with branch, leaf, and insect. 



Plants as well as insects we found arrogantly commandeered by 

 some of these tiny autocrats, notably when the willow leaves were 



