NATURE STUDIES IN SMALL AREAS 



BY DR. R. W. SHUFELDT, C. M. Z. S. 



PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR 



IT WAS the great American naturalist, Louis Agassiz, 

 who said that a man might spend the three score years 

 and ten of his life-span on a square mile in the unex- 

 plored part of a Brazilian forest; work every day and 

 all day at the natural history 

 of the various living animals 

 found in such an area, and 

 at the end of that time he 

 would be a long way from 

 having it described and illus- 

 trated. No truer statement 

 was ever made ; and it may 

 be added that were that man 

 to undertake to describe the 

 anatomy and physiology of 

 all those forms, a thousand 

 years would not suffice in 

 which to complete the task. 

 Indeed, this Agassizian axi- 

 om might apply, with equal 

 pertinence, to an area of one- 

 fourth of the extent named, 

 and the territory be selected 

 in some heavily timbered and 

 rarely frequented part of the 

 eastern states. To partly 

 demonstrate this, we may 

 select the animals collected 

 and the observations made 

 on a trip through the timber, 

 undertaken early in May, in 

 a stretch of woods next to a 

 river near the Atlantic coast 

 somewhere between Massa- 

 chusetts and South Carolina. 

 The land is gently rolling, 

 well watered with springs, 

 small streams, and some 

 marshy places, while most of 

 it supports a fine second 

 growth of timber, consisting 

 principally of various species 

 of oaks, pines, cedars, pop- 

 lars, and a few other kinds. 

 Not many flowers are in 

 bloom there at this season, 

 although the cowslips were 

 well advanced during the 

 first week in April, while 

 but a little later the Dutchman's breeches were already 

 going to seed. 



Still, on this May morning in these woods, the trees 

 are all in full leaf, and the blossoms of the poplars have 

 already passed. Standing among the second growth 



GROUP OF DEAD OAK TREES 



Fig. 1. In most cases, the bark may easily be torn off in sheets, exposing 

 the ravages of the borers. Some of the trees have fallen to the ground 

 and on many of them the bark is entirely absent. 



stock, we note here and there an enormous oak which 



probably was a fair-sized tree in Revolutionary days. 



Some of the pine trees and poplars, too, were, in their 



way, giants among trees, lifting their heads far above 



those of a later growth about 

 them. 



In a marshy place cover- 

 ing several acres may be seen 

 some thirty or forty oaks of 

 all sizes two or three of 

 them being of immense pro- 

 portions, while others fall in 

 the second-growth class ; 

 half a dozen pine trees are 

 found in the same area. For 

 the most part every one of 

 these trees are dead ; the tops 

 only of others are dead, 

 while in some instances the 

 tree has fallen, and is either 

 stretched in the mire or lean- 

 ing against another dead one 

 of the group. We find the 

 bark of many of those that 

 have long been dead entirely 

 removed in others it may 

 be readily detached in great 

 sheets by a slight pull ; and 

 in most instances beneath it 

 is found all the evidence of < 

 the ravages of either ants or 

 certain beetle borers and 

 their larvae. Their borings 

 riddle the trunk of the tree 

 from top to bottom, and the 

 wood is very friable, soft, 

 and rotten, the main galleries 

 being, in many places, chok- 

 ed with fine wood dust, in 

 evidence of the mischief they 

 have done the tree. 



Other beetles of a dull 

 black color are also present, 

 but these must not be con- 

 founded with another met 

 with under logs and stones 

 on the ground, specimens of 

 which were also collected on 

 that May day. The ones 

 found under the bark of the trees are here shown in 

 Figure 3, natural size four of them photographed from 

 life. The smaller specimen, up in the right hand corner, 

 is also found under the bark; it is orange-yellow, with a 

 blackish head and pincer-like mandibles. With these it 



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