THE LANCASTER FARMER 



[June, 



To further illustrate that the Greeks had a 

 better knowledge of what a cicada really is, 

 than that which exists in some localities at 

 the present day, it is stated that notwith- 

 standing their veneration for this insect, they 

 nevertheless, made it an article of fond, and 

 considered it as delicious ; and Aristotle says, 

 that "the larva, when grown in the earth, and 

 becomes a pupa is the sweetest. " It has often 

 been observed that animals of different kinds 

 manifest a special fondness for the larm and 

 2nq)a of these insects in our own times. Waiv- 

 ing their edible qualities altogether, the 

 knowledge that they passed their larval and 

 pupal periods in the earth, illustrates that 

 they did not confound it with the grasshopper, 

 because that insect, strictly speaking, has no 

 larval or pupal periods ; only corresponding 

 transitions ; all taking place above ground, 

 its metamorphoses being technically regarded 

 as incomplete. 



Modern superstitions in regard to this insect 

 are even more silly than those of the ancients. 

 Even in my early days, some people regarded 

 the appearance of the " 17-year locust" as an 

 indication of a terrible war, and they could 

 unerringly point out a " W " on each of their 

 anterior wings, ; not knowing that the zig-zag 

 vienation of the wings, was characteristic of 

 the whole genus, only more distinct in some 

 species than in others. Their "song," (which 

 by the way, was greatly exaggerated by the 

 Greek poets,) has by modern superstitionists, 

 been contorted into " P-har-aoh," associating 

 it with the destructive locusts of Egypt. I 

 remember when I was an apprentice, how my 

 master criticised '■^Rileifs naratioe" because he 

 represented a locust by a big grasshopper. 

 It was like the teacher who was discharged 

 by the school board because he spelled 

 "taters" with a p. Locusta ?ni(/?-atoria is the 

 migrating grasshopper of the Orientals. 



My next experience in natural history was 

 when a boy, about nine years old. For the first 

 time in my life I noticed on a parsnip plant, 

 that grew in the corner of an enclosure, a 

 singular "worm" transversely marked with 

 black and green. When touched it threw 

 out two yellowish teutacles near the head, 

 which emitted a very disagreeable odor. I 

 broke off the branch to which the worm was 

 affixed, took it home and put it in a paper- 

 box. Some days thereafter when 1 attempted 

 to show my worm to some other boys, lo ! it 

 had disappeared and instead thereof, I found 

 attached to the underside of the lid, a very 

 singular object for which I knew no name, 

 and therefore I called it a "thingumbob," 

 after the manner of many older and wiser peo- 

 ple, when they refer to an object of which 

 they are unacquainted with the name. And 

 just here at this point allow me to indulge in 

 a digression. Many objections are made to 

 the study of the natural sciences on account 

 of their technologies, the Greek and Latin 

 names bestowed upon natural objects, alleg- 

 ing that a treatise on natural history written 

 in the English language should embrace only 

 English names. This is all right so far as it 

 goes, but it has its limit. Naturalists do em- 

 ploy English names in all cases where it is 

 practicable, and where such names exist ; but 

 unfortunately many natural objects have no 

 English names ; and, in making an intelligent 

 record of them they must receive such names 



as will be understood by the whole scientific 

 world, whether German, English, Spanish, 

 French, Portugese, Russian or any other 

 learned nation; and Latin although "dead" 

 is more universal than any other language. 

 For instance the museums of the world con- 

 tain over 100,000 species of "beetles" alone ; 

 and included in the cla.ss Insecta are more 

 than .500,000 species ; and taking the whole 

 animal kingdom together the number cannot 

 be much less than one million species. How 

 far does the term "Pinch-bug" define the spe- 

 cies of an insect, ? When we know that the 

 whole 100,000 beetles are pinch-bugs. Cur- 

 culio, is a scientific name. become popularized, 

 but there are 2000 species of curculios in the 

 United States alone. How many of these 

 have received common names ? There is the 

 pea-bug, the bean-weevil, the grain-weevil, 

 the rice-weevil, the apple-weevil or plum- 

 weevil, and perhaps half a dozen others. The 

 plum-weevil is a conotrachelus, but there are 

 at least 20 species of that genus. "Colorado 

 potato beetle," or "ten-lined spearman" are 

 surely longer names than Dori/pliora decemlin- 

 eata, and it can be written much shorter than 

 it can be pronounced. The Germans have a 

 small beetle belonging to the Lady-bird fami- 

 ly, which they call "Kugle kaeferaelmlicher 

 Heckenblattkaefer, " but its name in Latin is 

 Chrysometla coccenelloides, and there are hun- 

 dreds of such instances in entomology alone. 

 But, to return to my story of the green and 

 black worm. I could not imagine what had 

 become of it nor how this "thingumbob" had 

 gotten into the box — it seemed a lifeless form 

 of something very odd. Some of the boys 

 said they had seen such things before, others 

 said I was mistaken, and others again intim- 

 ated that I was lying. About a week there- 

 after when I intended to show the singular ob- 

 ject to other boys, behold ! I found the box 

 occupied by a large black and yellow butter- 

 fly. But no one would believe that the but- 

 terfly had any relation to the other object in 

 the box; moreover that was still there, al- 

 though somewhat mutilated. About a year 

 thei eaf ter I found the same kind of a thing 

 attached in the same manner, to the under- 

 side of a fence rail. I detached it, took it 

 home, put it in a box, and in due time a sim- 

 ilar butterfly was evolved. I had simply de- 

 monstrated the transformations of our com- 

 mon hwtterAy —Papilio asterias. I was con- 

 vinced, but I could not convince others, be- 

 cause the very next chrysalis T confined 

 evolved a wasp, nearly as large as our com- 

 mon paperraaking wasp. This not only per- 

 plexed me but it discredited my observations 

 with others. This wasp had dark, bluish, iri- 

 descent wings, and reddish brown body, feet 

 and anteniife. When I say, a wasp, I do not 

 mean the insect that in the ordinary accepta- 

 tion of the term is called a wasp. It belongs 

 to quite a different family from the common 

 wasp, although to the same order of insects. 

 The real American wasp is a "hornet," the 

 Vespa niaculala of entomologists. What, in 

 common language, has been named a wasp, is 

 a Polistes and belongs to a different genus, 

 although to the same family. The insect I 

 allude to in connection with the butterfly, be- 

 longs to a very large family ot parasites called 

 IchneumonidtB, or "Ichneumon flies." Why 

 they are called "Ichneumons," and what an 



Ichneumon is, will be made manifest before I 

 conclude this paper. I had often noticed a 

 steel-blue wasp, and also a brown and yellow 

 one, resorting to the margin of a mudhole, 

 and there gather a pellet ot mud bearing it off 

 and attaching it to a large mass adhering to a 

 rafter, accompanying the operation by a strid- 

 ulating sound. These, by way of discrimina- 

 tion, were called "mud wasps." They were 

 the Sphex cerulea and macidata of naturalists. 

 I also noticed that they occasionally would 

 bring a spider and push it into these mud-cells, 

 from which it never attempted to escape, 

 although it was not dead— only paralyzed. 

 But I am getting away from the the papilio, a 

 genus that contains the largest, most highly 

 colored species in the world. South America 

 and the East Indies are remarkable for their 

 fine species of Papilionidm. 



Papilio is simjaly the Latin name of a but- 

 terfly, although this name is now restricted 

 to a certain genus of butterflies. "The white 

 cabbage butterfly," Pieris rapca, is not techni- 

 cally a Papilio, but at the same time it is a 

 Painlionidoe, because it belongs to that fami- 

 ly of butterflies ; just as Tom Jones is not 

 John Jones, although he may belong to the 

 Jones family. 



When it is defined in a Latin dictionary 

 that a Papilio is a "kind of moth that flits 

 about lighted candles," the definition con- 

 veys an erroneous impression, because the 

 papilios are strictly diurnians or day-flyers, 

 and at night are in repose. Of course, I am 

 not certain as to the species, upon which I 

 made my first observations, but I presume it 

 to have been asterias. This specific name 

 seems to be altogether arbitrary. The Asters 

 or starworts belong to the composite order of 

 plants, but from the fact that Papilio asterias 

 feeds exclusively on umbeliferous plants — 

 such as parsnips, parsley, fennel, &c., I infer 

 it was this species. 



During the spring and summer months the 

 female asterias deposits her eggs, singly or in 

 small groups, on the leaves of their favorite 

 food plant, and in due time these eggs are 

 hatched by the warm sun. When the young first 

 come forth they are nearly black, but as they 

 increase in age and size, and cast off their 

 skins, the party colors appear. In the worm 

 state it is called a larva, which means a mask, 

 because the insect that deposited the egg 

 is then masked. By a previous preparation, 

 and expert dissection, the pupal form may be 

 detected within the body of the larva. After 

 the larva has fully matured it is transform ed 

 into a, pupa, which means a "puppet," or a 

 babe wrapped in swaddlings. The terms 

 chrysalis, aurelia and nymph mean correspond- 

 ingly the same, although the last name is 

 more frequently applied to such insects as 

 undergo their transformations in the water. 

 The last transformation is trompupa to imago, 

 because the insect is then in the image of the 

 parent that deposited the egg. Many insects, 

 perhaps all of them have parasites which prey 

 upon them. Most of these parasites are very 

 small and in many instances very numerous, 

 but some of them are nearly as large as the 

 host upon which they prey. The female para- 

 site deposits one or more eggs in or on the 

 body of the larva, which is in due time incu- 

 bated, and the little worm then feeds on the 

 body of its host. Sometimes the infested lar- 



