U26 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



It is hard for man, who has con- 

 quered all the beasts of the forest by his 

 superior intelligence, to realize what a 

 struggle for existence is going on about 

 him in the grass beneath his feet. Im- 

 agine being pursued on every hand by 

 enemies like this, and having to be on 

 the alert every instant of your brief ex- 

 istence lest you fall into the clutches of 

 some absolutely merciless monster. 



Having conquered the beasts which he 

 can see and shoot, man is turning his at- 

 tention to these minute monsters and is 

 coming to realize their gigantic impor- 

 tance to the human race. Species of 



* Although perhaps not customary in an ar- 

 ticle of this character, I wish to publish my 

 indebtedness to those who have helped to make 

 its preparation possible; to Dr. N. A. Cobb for 

 blazing the way by his house-fly photographs, 

 published in the ISIationai. Geographic Maga- 

 zine, May, 1910 ; to Dr. L. O. Howard and his 

 •colleagues of the National Museum for naming 

 the insects; to Scott Cline for developing all 

 the negatives and making all the prints ; to 

 L. C. Crandall for making valuable sugges- 



beetles no larger than a bird-shot have 

 destroyed more forests than all the forest 

 fires, and bugs no larger in size have 

 caused an annual loss of 200 millions of 

 dollars to the grain-growers of a single 

 country. The fence corners, the old logs, 

 the stone piles, the stumps, and the v/eeds 

 everywhere are breeding-places for these 

 strange creatures, and you can no more 

 maintain a vegetable garden or run a suc- 

 cessful orchard without making provision 

 to protect your plants from them than a 

 man can raise chickens in an African 

 jungle without a dog-tight fence to pro- 

 tect them from the wild beasts.* 



tions ; to Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Graham 

 Bell, and Mr. Barbour Lathrop, of Chicago, 

 for their enthusiastic support ; to Miss. C. J. 

 Aldis and Mrs. F. A. Keep for revisions of 

 the manuscript, and to the members of the 

 Entomological Society of Washington for their 

 kindly criticisms during its first reading. 



Although the personal pronoun has been 

 used throughout the article, I wish to make it 

 clear that Mrs. Fairchild is quite as responsible 

 as I am for the taking of these photographs. 



THE MONARCH OF THE CANADIAN ROCKIES 



The Robson Peak District of British Columbia and Alberta 



By Charles D. Walcott 



Secretary oe the Smithsonian Institution 



ROBSON, the most majestic peak 

 of the Canadian Rockies, is situ- 

 ated northwest of the Yellow- 

 head Pass, through which the Grand 

 Trunk Pacific and the Canadian North- 

 ern railways have been building their 

 lines to connect the great interior plains 

 and granary of Canada with the Pacific 

 coast. Known to trappers of the Hud- 

 son Bay Company and a few hardy ex- 

 plorers who have penetrated the region 

 in search of a practicable trail to the 

 Pacific, the region remained almost a 

 terra incoc/nita to the outside world until 

 Dr. A. P. Coleman described his attempts 

 to scale Robson Peak. 



Messrs. Milton and Cheadle, in their 

 search for the "Northwest Passage by 



Land," * give the first graphic descrip- 

 tion of Robson Peak as they saw it 

 from the Fraser River. 



"On every side the snowy heads of 

 mighty hills crowded round, whilst, im- 

 mediately behind us, a giant of giants, 

 and immeasurably supreme, rose Rob- 

 son's Peak. This magnificent mountain 

 is of conical form, glacier-clothed, and 

 rugged. When we first caught sight of 

 it, a shroud of mist partially enveloped 

 the summit, but this presently rolled 

 away, and we saw its upper portion 

 dimmed by a necklace of light feathery 



*-"The Northwest Passage by Land," by Vis- 

 count Milton and W. B. Cheadle. Page 257. 

 Published by Cassel, Petter and Galpin, Lon- 

 don. 1865. 



