INSECTS OF THE PACIFIC COAST 



ovules of these flowers and there the tiny grub 

 (larva) lives and feeds and changes linaliy into a 

 little chrysalid and then adult. The adult male 

 Blastophaga is a curious deformed wingless crea- 

 ture, and remains in the ilg of its birth until it 

 dies. But the female is a winged active insect that 

 leaves its natal and cradle fig and Hies to others to 

 lay its eggs. Curiously it can find suitable egg- 

 laying places only in the wild or so-called capri 

 figs and so does not leave eggs in the cultivated 

 figs, but in walking about over their flowers it dusts 

 them with pollen brought from the fig last visited, 

 and thus produces the necessary cross-pollination. 

 As the Blastophaga lays no eggs in the domestic figs 

 it is necessary to keep a few wild fig trees growing 

 in or near the orchard. 



But not all the Pacific Coast insects are exces- 

 sively bad bugs or excessively good ones. Some call 

 for attention because they are just beautiful, or 

 singular, or of unusual habit or habitat. And these 

 are likely to seize the interest of most of us, more 

 certainly than the pests. For, after all, our interest 

 in Nature is not primarily one of dollars and cents. 

 It is one of curiosity and of "wanting to know." 



A matter that lends California's fauna and flora 

 a special interest to naturalists, and even to just na- 

 ture-lovers, is the peculiar biogeographic situation of 

 the state. Biologically, California is essentially a 

 large island, shut olf by barriers of actual water on 

 one side and by hot deserts and high cold mountain 

 ranges on the other, with the ends also similarly 

 barred by desert and mountain. This results in her 

 showing the characteristics of an island fauna 

 and flora, possessing monotypic plants and animals, 

 unique, solitary kinds, developed in isolation and 

 under special local conditions. California's insect 

 fauna, therefore, includes many unique species and 

 genera, and even a few families, not found else- 

 where on this continent, not even in other neighbor- 

 ing states. This makes it an exceptionally happy 

 hunting ground for the insect collector and sys- 

 tematist. 



But not only does its biological isolation give an 

 exceptional interest to its insect kinds, but its extra- 

 ordinary topographic and climatic diversity intro- 

 duce unusual and highly contrasted conditions in 

 insect living and, through environmental influence, 

 produce strange kinds of specialization of structure 

 and habit. For example, the brave little butterflies 

 (Chionobas) that live on the summits of the Sierra 

 Nevada are bound to attract our attention, for their 

 nearest cousins (other species of the same genus) 



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