Natural Science News. 



VOL. I 



Natural Science News. 



A Weekly Journal Devoted to 

 Natural History. 



FRANK H. LATTIN, Editor and Publisher, 

 ALBION, N. Y. 



Correspondence and Items of Interest to the 

 student of any of the various branches of the 

 Natural Sciences solicited from all. 



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July Insects. 



During mid-summer the bees 

 and wasps are very busy building 

 their nests and rearing their young. 

 The Humble bees, late in June and 

 the first of this month, send out 

 their first broods of workers, and 

 about the middle of the month the 

 second lot of eggs are laid, which 

 produce the smaller-sized females 

 and males, while eggs laid late in 

 the month and early in August, 

 produce the larger-sized queens, 

 which soon hatch. These hiber- 

 nate. The habits of their pecu- 

 liar parasite, Apathus, an insect 

 which closely resembles the Hum- 

 ble bee, are still unknown. 



The Leaf-cutter bee {Megachile) 

 may be seen flying about with 

 pieces of rose-leaf, with which she 

 builds, for a period of twenty days, 

 her cells, often thirty in number, 

 using for this purpose, according 

 to Mr. F. W. Putnam's estimate * 

 at least one thousand pieces! The 

 bees referred to "worked so dili- 

 gently that they ruined five or six 

 rose-bushes, not leaving a single 

 unblighted leaf uncut, and were 

 then forced to take the leaves of a 

 locust tree as a substitute." 



The Paper-making wasps, of 

 which Vespa metadata, the "White- 

 faced wasp," is our largest spe- 

 cies, are now completing their 

 nests and feeding their young with 

 flies. The Solitary wasp ( Odyner- 

 us albophaleratus) fills its earthen 



*See "Proceedings of the Essex Institute," 

 vol. iv,p. 105. 



ALBION, N. Y., JULY 27, 1895. 



cells with minute caterpillars, 

 which it paralyzes with its poison- 

 ous sting. A group of mud-cells, 

 each stored with food for the single 

 larva within, we once found con- 

 cealed in a deserted nest of the 

 American Tent caterpillar. Nu- 

 merous species of Wood wasps 

 (^CrabronidoR) are engaged in tun- 

 nulling the stems of the black- 

 berry, the elder and syringa, and 

 enlarging and refitting old nail 

 holes, and burrowing in rotten 

 wood, storing their cells with flies, 

 caterpillars, aphides and spiders, 

 according to the habit of each spe- 

 cies. Eumenes f rater na, which at- 

 taches its single, large, thin-walled 

 cell of mud to the stems of plants, 

 is, according to Dr. T. W. Harris, 

 known to store it with Canker 

 worms. Pelopeeus, the Mud-daub- 

 er, is now building its earthen 

 cells, plastering them on old raft- 

 ers and stone walls. 



The Saw flies ( Tenthredo), etc., 

 abound in our gardens this month. 

 The Selandria vitis attacks the 

 vine, while Selandria rosce, the 

 Rose slug, injures the rose. The 

 disgusting Pear slug-worm (S. 

 cerasi), often live twenty to thirty 

 on a leaf, eating the parenchyma, 

 or softer tissues, leaving the blight- 

 ed leaf. The leaves should be 

 sprinkled with a mixture of whale- 

 oil soap and water, in the propor- 

 tion of two pounds of soap to fif- 

 teen gallons of water. 



Among the butterflies, Melitaa 

 Ismeria, in the south, and M. 

 Harrisii, in the north, are some- 

 times seen. A second brood of 

 Colias Philodice, the common sul- 

 phur-yellow butterfly, appears, 

 and Pieris oleracea visits turnip 

 patches. It lays its eggs in June, 

 on the leaves, and the full-grown, 

 dark-green, hairy larva, may be 

 found in August. The Pieris rapce, 

 or imported cabbage butterfly, is 

 now also abundant. Its green 

 hairy larva is fearfully prevalent 

 about Boston and New York. The 

 last of the montn a new brood of 

 Grapta comma appears, and a sec- 

 ond b.ood of the larva of C/iry- 

 sop/ianus Americanus may be found 

 on the sorrel. 



The larvae or Pyrrarctia Isabella 

 hatch out the first week in July, 

 and the snuff-colored moth enters 

 our windows at night, in company 

 with a host of night-flying moths. 

 These large moths, many of which 

 are injurious to crops, are com- 

 monly thought to feed on clothes 



No. 26 



and carpets. The true carpet and 

 clothes moths are minute species, 

 which flutter noislessly about our 

 apartments. Their narrow, feath- 

 ery wings are edged with long silk- 

 en fringes, and almost the slight- 

 est touch kills them. 



Among beetles, the various bo- 

 rers, such as the Saperda, or apple 

 tree borer are now pairiug and fly 

 in the hot sun about trees. Nearly 

 each tree has its peculiar enemy, 

 which drives its galleries into the 

 trunk and branches of the tree. 

 Among the Tiger beetles, frequent- 

 ing sandy places, the large Cicin- 

 dela generosa and the Ciciruiela hir- 

 tieollis are most common. The 

 grotesque larva? live in holes in 

 sand-banks. 



The nine-spotted Lady Bug, 

 Coceinella novemnotata is one of a 

 large group or beetles, most bene- 

 ficial from their habit of feeding 

 on the plant lice. We also find an- 

 other enemy of the Aphides, C/iry- 

 sopa, and its eggs mounted each 

 on a long silken stalk, thus placed 

 above the reach of harm. 



Among other beneficial insects 

 belonging to the Neieroptera, is the 

 immense family of Libellulida, or 

 Dragon flies. The Forceps-tail, 

 or Panorpa P. ritfescens is found in 

 bushy fields and shrubbery. They 

 prey on smaller insects, and the 

 males are armed at the extremity 

 of the body with an enormous for- 

 ceps-like apparatus. — Packard's In- 

 sect Calendar. 



Nature. 



"There is a pleasure in the pathless 

 woods 



There is a rapture on the lonely shore, 

 There is society where none intrudes, 

 By the deep sea, and music in its roar: 

 I love not man the less but Nature 

 more." 



How great, how wonderful is 

 Nature! How gloriously; brilliant- 

 ly, dazzlingly beautiful! How 

 mighty! How strong! What im- 

 posing grandeur! What magnifi- 

 cent splendor! What boundless 

 power! Her mighty rivers flowing 

 through the land, her vast oceans, 

 alike so calm and so angry, so 

 serene and so furious, so smiling 

 and so terribly destructive, her 

 ponderous rocks and her gigantic 

 mountains, her fearful volcanoes 

 belching and thundering forth in 

 furious flames, her fairylike clouds 

 floating over land and sea, how 

 wonderful are they. Her trees 



