56 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO FRUIT. 



years underground, should come to the surface in the evening of a certain day of 

 the month, with almost exact regularity, generation after generation, for centuries ? 

 How should a certain kind of wasp know, that when she builds a cell of mud for the 

 reception of her egg, she must put in a supply of insects for food for the young that 

 will be born of that egg, and that on a certain future day she must break open that 

 cell, and give her young a fresh supply? Who teaches the neuter bee that .non- 

 descript that cannot be a parent how to fabricate a cell for the young of another ? 

 Such curious instances of the instincts of insects could be multiplied till they would fill 

 a volume, and all would be wonderful equally beyond our understanding, but all 

 consistent with their wants, and in accord with the rest of nature. Those who care- 

 fully observe these things will feel that they are in a world overruled by an Omnipre- 

 sent Guide of all things. But the Superintending Guide that teaches the little Curculio 

 to deposit her eggs in fruits where the future young will find food, would hardly 

 give her an instinct to guard her against depositing that egg where fruits never grow 

 except on trees planted contrary to nature. 



We were told to-day that the tides were sometimes so low as partially to drain 

 this pond, and it was then the Curculio punctured the fruit over where the water 

 should be. The same special instinct that would teach her to avoid the water, should 

 also admonish her to avoid the danger of the tide-water mud, the one being as fatal 

 to the future grub as the other. 



Planting fruit trees in this way will certainly diminish the number of Curculios; 

 but as long as millions of young apples are permitted to lie undisturbed on the 

 ground in the orchards in the neighborhood, to bring forth their vast armies for the 

 next year, it will hardly be worth while to dig such ponds and plant trees round them 

 in such an awkward position for the little good they would do. The embryo Cur- 

 culio in the fruit that falls into the water will perish undoubtedly ; but that water, or 

 the fear of it, will not prevent the parent using that fruit. The teachings of instinct 

 are so exact and unvarying that one punctured plum over water explodes the theory ; 

 and if the theory is correct, a tub of water under a tree must protect a column of 

 plums of the tub's circumference from the bottom to the top of that tree, and that 

 certainly would be a curiosity with some of the light-colored, full-bearing varieties. 



It is not at all likely that many will plant trees in this way; but as some have 



