76 
NATURE STUDY. 
dipterists to despair. Some in yellow, some in green, some in 
blue ; some mimicking the dress and manners of the bees — a 
gay and brilliant, if somewhat unprincipled company. In con¬ 
trast, the sober grasshoppers — the awkward Melanoplus bivitta- 
tus, the trim Red-legged Locust and its cousin the Atlanis — 
three species of one genus sometimes on a single stalk. In Au¬ 
gust the Tree Crickets, also ; the males, stationary, with extended 
wings repeating their strident calls throughout the night, while 
the females roam about, seemingly indifferent to the male por¬ 
tion of creation in general, and to male Tree Crickets in particu¬ 
lar. The Tree Hoppers, in great numbers, sufficiently pert 
with their knowing eyes ; demure enough, too, until near ap¬ 
proach, but resentful of familiarity, escaping, at the last mo¬ 
ment, to some friendly stalk on the opposite side of the patch. 
The plant lice increase as the season advances, and the black 
ants hasten to bear them company, stroking them with their 
antennae and sipping the honey dew from the tips of the tiny 
tubes rising from the back of the abdomen. But this complais- 
ancy toward the gentle and harmless ant often leads Aphis to 
her undoing; for how shall she, all unsuspecting, perceive the 
treachery of the malicious Aphidiinae ? The deceitful little 
Braconid, that looks like a fly and is not, approaches the Aphis 
face to face, and greets her with all fair seeming ; and then 
gives her a spiteful thrust, straight home. It is all over with 
poor Aphis. One female has stung another, as happens often 
in insect society, and will continue to happen to the end of 
insect time. 
But little Ned; ignorant, like many another child, of the trage¬ 
dies around him, peering mid the artichokes for Tree Hoppers, 
has made a discovery. Holding a tiny insect in his hand, he 
says : “ I guess it’s a beetle,but it’s a funny one.” It is a beetle, 
and it is funny ” — the queerest of all the queer folk in this 
artichoke assembly. Thomas Say named it Anthicus monodon, 
and Mrs. Say drew the first picture of it. Professor Le Conte 
afterwards decided that it was a Notoxus ; but it is just as queer 
under one name as another. The thorax is prolonged over the 
