THE UNIQUE ISLAND OF MOUNT DESERT 89 



has lost, or presumably lost, both plants enjoy such an ideal area, with its unmo- 

 and animals. lested wild flowers, ferns, birds, and 

 The location of the island as the play- mammals, and with the full beauty of 

 ground, habitual or occasional, of a vast nature everywhere displayed, without 

 and highly intelligent portion of our desiring and providing a similar bless- 

 population also renders it remarkably ing — according to the varied opportuni- 

 appropriate for such a natural reserva- ties that offer — for themselves and their 

 tion : and if such a reservation could be children in other parts of the nation, 

 established with emphasis laid upon the It is therefore earnestly hoped that 

 redevelopment and maintenance of nat- those who have it within their power will 

 ural and indigenous conditions, its influ- take the proper steps to insure the pres- 

 ence upon the intelligent peoples of ervation and true conservation of the 

 America would be far-reaching; for it is area so generously placed at their dis- 

 inconceivable that lovers of nature could posal. 



A BOOK OF MONSTERS 



By David and Marian Fairchild 



One year ago the Geographic printed a series of remarkable photographs of 

 "Monsters of Our Back Yards/' by David Fairchild. The series of pictures and 

 the article accompanying them aroused so much comment and stimulated such an 

 interest in the study of these important but tiny creatures that the National Geo- 

 graphic Society urged Mr. Fairchild to photograph more of these monsters. This 

 he has done, and seven additional photographic enlargements are printed here. 

 For the benefit of those readers who are particularly interested in the subject, the 

 Society has arranged for the publication, in book form, of more than a hundred 

 of Mr. Fairchild's pictures of spiders, hornets, wasps, ants, bees, bumblebees, red 

 and black ants, grasshoppers, locusts, cricket-on-the-hearth, cockroach, dragon- 

 Hies, squash-bug, lantern Hy, crane fly, insect hazvks, soldier termite, mosquitoes, 

 butterflies and their larvce, moths, caterpillars, June-bug, ground beetle, clover-leaf 

 weevil, blister beetle, cucumber beetle, scarab, etc., etc. 



Bach creature photographed is magnified so many times that few details of 

 the external anatomy escape observation; and as one closely examines the pictures, 

 which sound a new note in the layman's study of nature, he is at once interested 

 and amazed at the new world it discloses and cannot help a curious fascination in 

 learning, for instance, of the existence of the delicate antenncE which enable the 

 cockroach to feci danger before it is seen, or of the wing-piece music-box zvith 

 which the male cricket calls to its mate in the grass, and other strange and wonder- 

 ful mechanisms of nature which stand out under the pozuerful microscope. 



The authors tell the life story of each "monster" they present with a fidelity 

 to fact that satisfies the scientist, and at the same time they have, invested each 

 "biography" with a charming touch of human interest zvhich takes the reader off 

 into the wonderland of his dooryard and gives an introduction to a new world 

 second only in importance to our own, when measured by the vast effect it has 

 upon human affairs. 



The book should be in the hands of every child and adult who would know 

 the wonder world which touches us on every side. As only a limited edition has 

 been printed, those desiring copies should send in their reservations at once on 

 the blank form printed elsewhere in the Magazine. 



