THE MONSTERS OF OUR BACK YARDS 



599 



millions of times their size should die 

 by thousands. And this, too, not through 

 any real fault of the tiny creatures them- 

 selves, but just because some of the per- 

 sons whose blood they sucked had mi- 

 croscopic wiggling things living in their 

 blood corpuscles, which crawled into the 

 soft throat glands of the mosquito and 

 waited there for a chance to get out into 

 the blood channels of some other human 

 beings. 



When one pictures the grief of deso- 

 lated homes, death-bed agonies, of toss- 

 ing fever patients, the quarantined ves- 

 sels at anchor in tropical harbors, yellow 

 flagged with crews dead or dying, the 

 streets of deserted houses, from which 

 all life has gone forever through yellow 

 fever and malaria, there is something 

 ghastly in the picture of the winged lady 

 mosquitos flitting airily from pale-faced 

 patients to ruddy-cheeked happy people, 

 unwilling carriers of death. 



THE HORSE-FLY (Tabauus atratus), 

 p.\GE 598 



The head of the horse-fly appears to 

 be all eyes, and it is no wonder that we 

 can so seldom take them by surprise. 



Below the oblong compound eyes are 

 the sharp mouth parts, which in the fe- 

 male are provided with lancets, which 

 enable her to puncture the skin of warm- 

 blooded animals and suck their blood. 

 It is curious that the female should have 

 such habits, while the males are content 

 to lap up nectar from the flowers. 



This jet black, loud-buzzing creature 

 flew into my laboratory and made so 

 much noise that I was forced to kill her. 

 This photograph of her is nine times her 

 real diameter. 



She belongs to a large and important 

 family of flies, whose females make the 

 lives of men and animals miserable in 

 many parts of the world by their bites, 

 which form most annoying wounds. 



THE WORKER BUMBLEBEE (Bombus VQ- 



gans), page 600 



This is the real worker of the hive, an 

 undeveloped female, a clumsy rover, her 

 hind legs laden with a mass of pollen 

 from the flowers she has visited. 



TiiK POOR M.VLE BUMBLEBEE (Bombtis 

 americanorum), page Coi 



It was late in October before I no- 

 ticed, flying low here and there across the 

 clover tops, large bumblebees, which 

 seemed to be more covered with golden 

 hairs than those which I had watched 

 throughout the summer-time. At first I 

 thought them queens, but as their number 

 multiplied I felt I must be mistaken, and 

 one of my insect-knowing friends ex- 

 plained that they were only males, and 

 that with the approaching days of winter 

 they were all doomed to death. Already, 

 he pointed out. their wings were battered 

 and frayed from flying against tiie au- 

 tumn winds. 



The importance of the males! Could 

 there be a weaker argument against 

 woman's suffrage than that of a noted 

 statesman of the times, in which he said 

 that throughout nature the duty and the 

 right of protection rests with the male? 

 Perhaps the drones do fight among them- 

 selves ; but, as in most other fighting of 

 the males, it is not to protect the nest or 

 young from perishing, but merely to de- 

 termine which one of them shall win the 

 queen's attention. They are stingless. 



In this world of the clover field all the 

 work of the society is done by the queen 

 herself or by the workers, which are in- 

 fertile females, and apparently few males 

 are wanted in the colony until late in the 

 season, when for a brief period they are 

 tolerated in considerable numbers as the 

 necessary courtiers who accompany the 

 young queens of late summer in their 

 marriage flight. This takes place before 

 the winter comes to kill all but a few 

 fortunate queens, which find safe shelter 

 in some crevice in the rocks or under- 

 neath some old decaying log. 



THE PORTRAIT OF THE BALD-FACED HORXET 



{Vcspnla maculata, Linn.), p.vge 602 



I wish I could convey to you my sen- 

 sation when, in hunting for the focus on 

 my ground glass, this creature burst upon 

 my sight. It was as though, exploring in 

 some strange land, I suddenly stood face 

 to face with a beast about which no 

 school book had ever taught me anvthing. 



It peered at me out of the gloom of 



