124 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Sept. 8, 1887. 



NOTES OF THE FIELDS AND WOODS. 



I.— SOME INSECT WATS. 



T "WAS quite interested the other clay in noticing a large 

 -1 blue wasp dragging a dead cricket across the road. 

 When I went nearer to get a better view the wasp flew 

 away a short distance, but upon my remaining quiet it 

 came back and resumed its task. It seemed to seize the 

 cricket's mouth parts with its own mandibles and then 

 rapidly walking backward dragged its victim along. 

 Twice it lost its hold and seemed to have some difficulty 

 in getting a new one. I was surprised at the facility 

 with which the wasp walked backward. It got into a 

 smooth wheel rut and moved along quite as rapidly, I 

 think, as if it had been walking forward. Pretty soon it 

 turned out of the path into the grass and became lost to 

 my view. 



A Mend told me of a much more interesting insect 

 drama which he witnessed one day this summer. A 

 large wasp had became entangled in a spider's web. 

 After struggling a while it seemed to give up its attempts 

 to escape and remained quiet. The spider, a large one, 

 which had been watching its victim from its cover, now 

 came out to take possession of it. But at its first touoh 

 the wasp showed new vigor; it pounced upon the spider, 

 and giving it two or three dabs with its sting and at the 

 same time breaking through its web, completely turned 

 the tables, and finally bore off the dead spider as its 

 victim. 



I have sometimes amused myself by lying upon the 

 grass and fixing my eyes upon some spot, after pushing 

 the grass aside a little so as to expose an inch or two of 

 ground, noticing how many different kinds of insects ap- 

 peared ii the space in a given time. One is surprised at 

 the number, yet each of these little creatures has its in- 

 dividual li e and history; it is born, it grows, it sucks 

 food, it mates, it produces young, it dies. It has marvel- 

 ous intelligence or, as we say, instincts. The more ac- 

 quainted we became with any one of them the more of 

 an individuality we shovdd find it possessed. In its little 

 world it has its own ways of doiug things, habits, dexter- 

 ities, adaptations, acquired doubtless through long ex- 

 perience of generations of ancestors and handed dovn by 

 the mysterious law of heredity. Naturalists know some- 

 thing about the- e little creatures; they have at least given 

 them a name and a place in then* catalogues and collec- 

 tions. The habits and the fife history of some of them 

 have been carefully studied, though of the estimated 

 190,000 kinds (species) of insects this can be said of only a 

 very few. 



The beetles are the most numerous order of insects, 

 there being 9,000 species. Any one who is interested may 

 find hundreds of them by looking. A common kind is 

 the tiger beetle, found in burrows in the ground, or on 

 fine summer and autumn days flying in the sunshine, 

 often near hot sandy roads. They are very voracious; 

 they prey on other insects which they may be able to over- 

 come, and it is safe enough to assume that includes 

 nearly all. They have powerful nipping jaws. I have 

 placed a small stick between them, and noticed what a 

 firm strong grip the beetle has. The larvae are large yel- 

 lowish grubs that live in holes in the ground, where they 

 lie in wait for their prey. An authority says: "They lie 

 at the mouth of this burrow, having their head and thorax 

 closing the opening, so as to be ready to seize any other 

 insect, which, when caught, is immediately dragged to 

 the bottom of their burrow and devoured at leisure." The 

 tiger beetles (Cincindelidce) are put down among the bene- 

 ficial insects, since they destroy so many kinds that are 

 injurious. 



Doubtless the best known, members of the order of 

 beetles are two which are nocturnal in then- habits, the 

 May beetle or June bug, and the common firefly or light- 

 ning bug. The former in its larval stage is well known to 

 farmers, being the hated grub which often does so much 

 damage by devouring the roots of plants. When it passes 

 into the perfect state it feeds on the leaves of trees, mak- 

 ing, as is well known, quite an uproar on a June night as 

 they buzz about among the leaves and strike against them 

 in their swift flight. Not infrequently, too, they extend 

 the range of their explorations, attracted by lights into 

 open doors and windows, and are not always welcomed 

 by timid and unentomological persons. I believe the 

 lightning bugs spend the daytime on the leaves of plants. 

 No satisfactory explanation can be given of their curious 

 power of emitting light. 



Any one who lives in the country or spends a part of the 

 summer or autumn there and has not tried the experi- 

 ment of rearing a butterfly from the larval stage, has 

 missed an opportunity of learning in a pleasant way a 

 good deal about the interesting subject of the develop- 

 ment of insects. The cabbage butterfly is perhaps as easy 

 as any to rear in this way. One who wishes to make a 

 thorough study of insect development should begin with 

 the egg itself. The eggs of this butterfly may be found 

 on the leaves of the cabbage plant. They are yellow, oval 

 bodies, with ridges running lengthwise, and have been 

 compared in appearance to ears of yellow corn. A leaf 

 with eggs attached may be put in a small tin or wooden 

 box with a piece of window glass for a cover to admit 

 light and to enable the observer to note the changes. The 

 egg soon hatches into a small green and white worm, the 

 larva of the caterpillar. The worm should be fed with 

 fresh cabbage leaves, and it will be found that it has no 

 lack of appetite. It rapidly grows and soon attains quite 

 a large size, at lea:t an inch in length. It is now ready 

 for the pupa stage. It crawls about somewhat eagerly 

 and uneasily as if searching for something. Finally it 

 spins a net, not a cocoon, but a web somewhat like that 

 of a spider, and supported by this net and attached to the 

 side of the box it passes into its long resting condition. 

 What takes place is a moulting of the skin, and the case 

 thus formed gradually takes on its peculiar form — an ob- 

 long, angular body, more pointed at one end than the 

 other. In this state it remains for ten or twelve days; 

 but while no visible changes take place, who shall tell the 

 story of what goes on within? At last the case breaks 

 open and there emerges the perfect insect — of not very 

 notable appearance compared with others of its kind, but 

 seemingly of quite heroic and triumphant bearing in its 

 issue out of its confinement. It is rather small, of fight 

 yellow color, with black tips to its anterior wings. The 

 male has one round black spot on each upper wing, the 

 female has two and sometimes three. The accompanying 

 figures show the three stages of the cabbage butterfly. 



Many other butterflies can quite as easily be reared as 

 this ©he. The larva of a handsome species feeds on the 



leaves of the milk weed plant and is a good one for this 

 purpose. Or one may take a common hairy caterpillar 

 and rear moth or butterfly in the same way. Sometimes 

 they are ready to pass into the pupa stage and so need no 

 further feeding. 



It sometimes happens that a larva will fail to go through 

 its proper changes. This is generally due to the presence 

 of parasitic insects in it, the most common of which is 

 the larva of the ichneumon fly. It seems odd that one 

 insect larva should prey upon another. It is the perfect 

 ichneumon insect, however, that opens the attack. With 

 its long ovipositor it pierces the body of butterfly cater- 



THE CABBAGE BUTTERFLY. 



pillars and deposits its eggs in them. The eggs hatch 

 into larvse and the larvae fe'd upon the tissues of the 

 caterpillars. Sometimes the latter die before the parasitic 

 larvae complete their transformation, and in this case, of 

 course, the parasites perish as well as their host. But 

 commonly the caterpillar lingers and the larvae pass into 

 the pupa stage and finally into the perfect ichneumon 

 fly. Indeed we should do great injustice to the instincts 

 of the ic' neunion and to the whole tribe of insects as 

 represented by it if we supposed it laid its eggs in any 

 situation where their development was not pretty well 

 assured. In spite of the loss of some eggs no doubt the 

 ichneumon could not find a better place to deposit them 

 than the body of the larval butterfly. What we call the 

 instincts of animals never lead them to do what is not 

 for then- own good. S. 



FORESTRY PROPOSALS. 



ME. B. E. FERNOW, the thoroughly trained German 

 now at the head of the Forestry Division of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture, has, at the re- 

 quest of a special agent of the Department of the Interior, 

 given an outline of a plan for the organization of a Forest 

 Department for this country. He lays down these four 

 fundamental principles of forestry: (1.) No more timber 

 should be cut on an average than can be replaced by growth 

 in any forest that is to be kept in perpetuity. (2.) Clear- 

 ing must at once be followed by planting, especially in 

 mountain districts. (3.) Cutting must always be done in 

 such a way a? to facil tate renewal. (4.) We can only 

 approximate to an estimate of the average yearly accre- 

 tion. But assuming the area to be 70,000,000 acres, and 

 that this produces on the average only ten cubic feet an- 

 nually — a yield that by correct management would short- 

 ly be doubled— and reckoning this worth only one cent 

 per cubic foot on the stump, our forest domain represents 

 a capital of at least $280,000,000. Suitable management 

 would prevent a large part of the $8,000,000 of annual 

 loss from fire. Therefore, if the preservation of our 

 mountain forests from fire were not expedient for other 

 reasons, the amount of valuable material saved would 

 warrant the outlay. 



The things to be done are: (1) To withdraw from sale, 

 preemption, etc., all timber lands. (2) To secure a sur- 

 vey at least of outside boundaries as fast as practicable. 

 (3) The agents needed would include a central bureau, 

 traveling and local inspectors and forest guards. (4) Or- 

 ganization of the forest area should proceed gradually as 

 needed; 10,000 or 20,000 acres should form a preserve, and 

 from twenty to thirty of these a district; unorganized 

 areas to be divided only into districts. (5) As to the func- 

 tions of officers: (a) Forest guards should be a local 

 police, appointed by, and responsible to, the local in- 

 spectors. They should be held to account for then re- 

 serves, and in the season of special danger have power to 

 call in assistants who should have sheriffs' authority to 

 call for the aid of any citizen in putting out fires. (&) 

 District inspectors should live in their districts, report to 

 and be appointed on recommendation of the Chief of the 

 Bureau and give bonds for fidelity. They should super- 

 intend and regulate the cutting of timber and other work, 

 oversee the rangers, see to the execution of laws and 

 regulations and be a means of communication between 

 the public and the Bureau, (c) This Central Bureau should 

 be under a commissioner, with three division inspectors or 

 chiefs of division as his council and make rules,* disburse 

 funds, according to an annual budget, fix prices and condi- 

 tions for timber sales and leases, regulate cutting and coop- 

 erate with the Land Office in mapping. The cbief s should 

 make annual inspections of their divisions, one of which 

 might include the Pacific slope, one the Rocky Mountain 

 region, and the third all the remaining public forest land. 

 Sales should be on the stump, and, in the first case, only 

 enough for local demand — and with public advertisement, 

 open bidding, and a deposit of the amount bid before cut- 

 ting begins. Permission to build sawmills should also 

 emanate from the Bureau. The chiefs of division should 

 be trained foresters, the district inspectors should be 

 practical lumbermen and woodsmen and believe in for- 

 estry, while the guards would need only such energy, 



courage, honesty and intelligence as would be needed im 

 similar duties anywhere. To properly care for the publiji 

 forest domain in Colorado— which probably contains soma 

 5,000,000 acres— there would be needed 300 rangers andl<£ 

 inspectors, costing perhaps $300,000 a year. This woulffl 

 be saved, if only there were nreventea* one-third of the 

 forest fires, which destroy at least $900,000 worth of tim^ 

 ber, to say nothing of other damage which is irreparable.,* 

 Such is the outline of the plan which Mr. Fernow pro-i 

 poses. The politician will, if he considers it at all, eitheri] 

 favor or oppose it, according as he hopes to profit bv job-*! 

 bery or to gain credit for watchfulness against it. 'Civil* 

 service reform must make a great advance before there 

 could be any reasonable prospect that spoilsmen could be 

 kept from the fat pickings which such a system would 1 

 offer them. Like the plans of the immortal Surell for the 

 reforesting of the regions in southeastern France which 

 were being torn to pieces by torrents, such proposals as 

 this of Mr. Fernow must be made and pushed with a faith 

 and self-devotion such as that which kept Columbus firm* 

 in his determination to sail westward to the Indies.— Eve-] 

 ning Post. 



A Tame Kittiwake Gell.— During the summer of 1881 J 

 Prof. A. Hyatt of Cambridge, Mass., with a number or 

 other scientists, made an excursion to the Gulf of Str.j 

 Lawrence to collect, and make observations for the Boston' 

 Society of Natural History. While there, among manyi 

 other specimens, they were able to capture two kittiwake; 

 gulls (Rissa tridactyla). These were tamed and gave their' 

 capturers many interesting and new facts. They werd 

 evidently about four days old and were placed in a paU 

 of fresh water, where they were fed upon fish. They ate 

 eagerly of the fish, but would not drink any water/ and 

 on the second day one of them died. The other was pin- 

 ing away rapidly and its owners were at a loss what to do, 

 when a sailor put in a pan filled with salt water. This it 

 drank of eagerly, and soon recovered. There have been 

 several theories advanced, as how gulls live when out to: 

 sea; few if any naturalists believing that they drink salt! 

 water. This proves at least that the kittiwake gull will 

 drink no water unless it is salt, even when it is dying of 

 thirst. If it is true of the kittiwake, why should it not be! 

 of other gulls? In about four weeks this* gull was able to 

 fly, but he never flew more than two or three feet. It was 

 one day thrown overboard when the schooner was at 

 anchor, so that it could learn to swim, but it showed great 

 terror, so it was immediately taken back. They then puft 

 it in a bucket of salt water, but with the same result. At? 

 last they placed it in a basin of water, and here it was 

 perfectly happy, as it could touch bottom whenever it 

 chose. After it had had several lessons in the basin ilj 

 was again placed in the bucket, and this time it was not 

 afraid. After that, it was able to swim in the ocean with- 

 out the slightest fear. This last experiment was tried in 

 Annisquam, Mass., the summer resort of Prof essor Hyatt J 

 Up to this time the gull had not learned to fly to any exr 

 tent, so one day Professor Hyatt threw it gently from an"] 

 elevation of about ten feet. Instead of flying slowly to 

 the ground, it sailed off for about a hundred feet, turned, 

 flew back over the house and through the trees, avoiding] 

 obstacles and soaring quite gracefully and swiftly. Aft 

 last it flew round and round Professor Hyatt, uttering 

 frightened screams. It was evident that it was in the] 

 same predicament as a boy who is riding a bicycle for the 

 first time: it could move with ease, but knew not how toi 

 stop. Professor Hyatt then threw up his arms and the bird 

 flew against him and fell to the ground. It was wild with 

 excitement and delight, and would have started again om 

 its own accord if it had not been restrained. When m 

 had cooled down, it tried again, but with the same result, 

 and it was several days before it could alight by itself. I 

 After this it flew a great deal but always returned, it wasj 

 perfectly tame and would come when called and its owners] 

 were very fond of it. For fear it would fly too far and be' 

 shot by some hunter, its wings were clipped. On August- 

 25 it was seen sitting in the water. Professor Hyatt called] 

 it and it came to him. Although its wings were clipped,! 

 it seemed to be able to fly quite a distance. After a littlei 

 while that day, the gull "flew across to a marsh opposite 

 the house and never returned. It was probably shot by 

 one of these bird-killing sportsmen. Its friends were very 

 devoted to it on account of its gentle ways, and were very^j 

 sorry to lose it.— Amateur Collector, 



The Sonate.— Tehuantepec, Mexico, Aug. 6. — A few] 

 days ago I shot a young bird, full feathered, called here; 

 the sonate. The feathers on head were light yellow,] 

 almost white, deepening to a bright yellow on the neck. 

 The breast was also bright yellow. The shoulders of both 

 wings were white, while around the vent the feathers I 

 were yellow; the rest of the bird was black. The male 

 sonate is a bird about the size of a magpie, a beautiful 

 blue black, the female is smaller and rusty black. Thoy~| 

 are cunning birds and great thieves, continually about, 

 the houses trying to steal food. They de-troy young-i 

 maize by pulling it up by the roots to eat the corn; but 

 they also eat a wonderful amount of insects, lucusts, 

 grubs, etc., and therefore do perhaps more good than I 

 harm. I have seen one with a piece of hard native bread, 

 seeping it in water to soften it. The one mentioned is < 

 the only one I ever saw or heard of having colored 

 feathers. I preserved the skin. There are many strange, i 

 birds and animals in this part of the world, especially 

 now during the rainy season. — W. W. [The sonate is the 

 yellow-headed blackbird (Xanthocephalus xanthocepha- 

 lus), a common species of Western America.] 



Gila Monster and Whip-Tailed Scorpion.— Tarpon , 

 Springs, Fla. — The Gila monster (illustrated in issue of 

 Aug. 4, by Dr. Shufeldt,) is quite common in Florida, 

 where it is called "alligator lizard." I think it must be' 

 the same thing; it has all the points mentioned by Dr. , 

 Shufeldt, with the exception of size, the Florida specimen . 

 rarely exceeding 7in. in length. The whip-tailed scorpion 

 is also common, and is credited with poisonous qualities,.] 

 but I have never been able to verify any of the many ac- J 

 counts I have heard of its deadly nature. Prof. Otto 

 Logger, of Baltimore, Md. , wrote me that it was entirely < 

 harmless, and had no poison fangs or glands. While. 

 "Nessmuk" was with me two years ago, we had one cap- 

 tive for a long time, and observed it closely. It was very ] 

 pugnacious, capturing its prey by sheer force. It isjj 

 known by various names: mole killer, scrouncher, devil, 

 bull driver and others that I do not recall. Dr, Shufeldt'g 

 articles ar.3 very interesting, and I hope he will continuei 

 them.-^S. D. Ejjndall. [The alligator lizard is not the ' 

 Gila monster.] 



