66 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 



in an emergency may be secured by feigning death. There are families of birds that 

 take their food only on the wing. A fly is perfectly safe within three inches of a toad's 

 nose if it remains still, but let it attempt to secure safety by flight and it instantly 

 ceases to be an independent portion of animate nature. This gives some indication of 

 how important a matter it is for the safety of insect life that they should remain per- 

 fectly still. 



But there is another important question that has to be taken into consideration in 

 this connection, and that is the condition of the eyesight, and there is a wide diversity 

 in the zoological world in this matter, from that of the most perfectly developed, to 

 where it is a point in dispute if they have any at all. Yet the ordinary vision of every 

 portion of it is nicely adjusted to its needs. That man's eyesight is not all that he 

 would like is made abundantly plain by his invention of ihe telescope and microscope, 

 and his constant effort to improve and extend their power?, and that the vision of many 

 of the lower animals does not even reach his is undoubted. The question has often 

 been discussed whether insects have any consciousness of form and color. I am quite 

 certain that a humming bird does not know a man from a post if he remains perfectly 

 still. I have had a Pewee come in contact with the hand that was holding a bottle 

 against a tree in its eagerness to secure a Catocala fluttering within, seemingly wholly 

 unconscious of my presence. Many a time when resting in the woods has a ground 

 squirrel come out of its hole close by me. It seemed to realize at the first glance that 

 there was something unusual there, but whether there was danger in it or not it could 

 only discover by investigation, so with that object in view it would come cautiously 

 toward me and would approach so close that I have thought it would climb upon me if 

 I could have kept perfectly still, but my breathing would excite its suspicion. We 

 have the testimony of sportsmen that it is movement that excites alarm in game and 

 makes it seek safety in flight, not the form of the hunter. Hence the utter worthless- 

 ness for the purpose intended of those hideous objects we see erected in fresh sown 

 grain fields, and called " scarecrows." They lack motion, or it is of a rythmical order, and 

 observation soon leads to the conviction that there is no danger in their presence, then 

 familiarity breeds contempt. So then motion is regarded as a sign of life throughout 

 the whole animal world, whether it be in the securing of proper food on the one hand, 

 or as a warning to escape from the feeders on the other, and motionlessness is one 

 of the best means of defence against those that are seeking life to take it, and in the 

 insect world it plays a most important part. 



But if insects have very defective eyesight as judged by our standard, they have a 

 complete advantage over us in the faculty of scent. Their power of locating their mates 

 is well known and phenomenal. One example more. Being in an open wood on an 

 early November morning with a light fall of snow on the ground, I saw two moths 

 about forty feet in front of me and about thirty feet, apart flying towards each other. I 

 hastened forward to see what they were. They passed out of sight behind a tree about 

 four feet from me ; I stepped round it, one of them flew away, the other was secured 

 by the wingless female of an Anisopteryx. And it is quite reasonable to suppose that 

 this faculty is of advantage to them in other respects, such as in securing their food and 

 in deciding upon the correct location for ovipositing. There are certain ichneumons that 

 confine their attention exclusively to some particular kind of larvte If they have no 

 power to distinguish between the form and color of the various kinds of caterpillars, 

 then it must be by scent that they are guided in their choice, whilst movement on the 

 part of the laivse would enable them more readily to locate the object of their search. 



There is now the question of how much can be learned from observation and 

 experience. We know how much man is indebted to it for his knowledge and wisdom. 

 Practice will enable one person to detect an object where one without it would see 

 nothing; it also sharpens the faculties to distinguish between things that differ, and to 

 the very last he is gaining knowledge by means of it. Many of the lower animals can 

 be educated to some extent in a similar manner, and niiny of them have been brought 

 to exhibit a wonderful degree of intelligence in that particular direction to which they 

 are naturally inclined, and there can be little doubt but many of them in a state of 

 nature acquire considerable knowledge in their life time, how best to conduct their 



