LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL. 53 



Insects are now more plentiful, and venture on 

 longer flights. Moths are sensitive to the cool air, 

 but many are coming out of their crevice homes 

 only to be entrapped by the marauding spiders, 

 that have already swung from shrub to shrub their 

 suspension bridges, the ropes of which, as you stand 

 in a favorable light, shine with all the colors of the 

 rainbow. Blue-bottles and other species of flies 

 that have curious life histories, are buzzing around 

 on this sunny slope, and lapping up the sap that 

 oozes from the bruised beech trunks and newly cut 

 maple stumps. Here is one that has invited inspec- 

 tion by alighting on my sleeve ; a large plump fellow 

 that has shown himself so soon after the frosts. 

 He is of the woods and fields, and has a wilder 

 appearance than the common house-fly. His legs 

 and body are quite thickly beset with stout black 

 bristles, the upper parts of thorax and abdomen 

 are delicately checkered with gray and black, while 

 the segments below are of dull greenish yellow. 

 This species is in the genus Tachina; many of 

 them lay their eggs on beetles and caterpillars, 

 gluing them to the bodies of their victims with an 

 adhesive substance that is proof against moisture 

 or friction. 



Notice a colony of sand bees flying low over the 



