72 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



NATURAL HISTORY NOTES. 



Read before the Hamilton Association. 

 BY WM. YATES, ESQ. 



The communistic or socialistic tie seems to be as rigidly 

 adhered to in assemblages of the larvae of moths as in the 

 inmates of the bee hive or of the anthill, and in associations 

 of the caterpillars of tree-boring Coleoptera, a regularity in 

 the method of conducting operations is observable, for, as 

 soon as the young emerge from the egg, the grubs assume a 

 numerical organization that reminds one of military recruits 

 under the orders of a drill instructor. The channels gnawed 

 out by companies of these beetle larvae on the inner bark, as 

 also on the surface of the juicy sap wood of recently fallen 

 trees, particularly of the elm species, in symmetry and precis- 

 ion of plan, are interesting objects of regard. The individual 

 grubs advance, twenty to thirty in number, in two parallel 

 lines, feeding at small distances from each other, as it were, 

 en-echelon, with the uniformity of the steps of a ladder. Pieces 

 of elm bark when removed from the tree trunks show an inter- 

 esting design that would show pictorial effects if correctly 

 imitated by the draughtsman's art. The spinners and weavers, 

 too, in the tent-caterpillar communities seem each animated b}' 

 a common, yet differentiated impulse that contributes from 

 various starting points to the completion of a harmonious de- 

 sign ; the same controlling tendency or idea can be sometimes 

 noticed in groups of larvae of several species of small moths, 

 in their hybernations and winter dormitories, as seen under 

 wood chips and fragments of tree bark, and in undisturbed 

 litter near fences at the forest border. The gregarious habit 

 and instinct is also frequently noticed in ophidians (and it is 

 S3,id by the chelonidae or mud turtles also), when by mis- 

 chance dug out of their winter retreats, the all-pervading in- 



