36 INSECTS 



hair only; but at the tips in the different species, are 

 found a great variety of tactile structures, taste cups 

 and gathering processes, by means of which our moth 

 not only recognizes the presence of something good to 

 eat, but manages to get it all, as well. In the adult stage 

 as moths or butterflies, the Lepidoptera have few bad 

 and many good qualities; but in the larval or cater- 

 pillar stage the reverse is the case. As pollenizers the 

 Lepidoptera could be missed much more readily than the 

 bees; none of our cultural plants depending upon 

 them for their continued existence. 



Among the Coleoptera or beetles there are many 

 that frequent flowers for one purpose or another and 

 many of these are more or less pubescent or covered 

 with hair, so that they may be and often really are 

 much covered by pollen as they move about. And 

 as they move about they do without question add 

 their share to plant fruitfulness ; but they are also very 

 often feeders upon them or upon the pollen. In so 

 far as they are pollen-feeders merely, this does little 

 harm, because that is usually produced in great ex- 

 cess; but some feed on the pollen in such a way as to 

 rob the plant of all possible chance of benefit. For 

 instance the strawberry-weevil in the larval stage 

 subsists altogether upon pollen. But the parent beetle 

 punctures the unopened bud, lays the egg in the mass 

 of forming pollen and then punctures the stalk below 

 the bud, so that the latter may never open. This is 

 sheer robbery without corresponding benefit and, on the 

 whole, flowers pay pretty heavily for such incidental 

 advantages as they derive from the visits of beetles. In 

 any case the pollination is purely incidental, for the 

 beetles gather neither pollen nor honey, and the hairy 

 covering is not modified to make it especially serviceable 

 as a carrier. 



