106 
INTRODUCTION OF INSECTS. 
creature was carried to the United States by European col¬ 
onists, in the latter part of the seventeenth century ; it did not 
cross the Mississippi till the close of the eighteenth, and it is 
only within the last five or six years that it has been trans¬ 
ported to California, where it was previously unknown. The 
Italian stingless bee has very lately been introduced into the 
United States. 
The insects and worms intentionally transplanted by man 
bear but a small proportion to those accidentally introduced 
by him. Plants and animals often carry their parasites with 
them, and the traffic of commercial countries, which exchange 
their products with every zone and every stage of social exist¬ 
ence, cannot fail to transfer in both directions the minute 
organisms that are, in one way or another, associated with 
almost every object important to the material interests of man.* 
The tenacity of life possessed by many insects, their pro¬ 
digious fecundity, the length of time they often remain in the 
different phases of their existence, f the security of the retreats 
1860, it amounted to 26,870,818 pounds, the increase being partly due to 
the introduction of improved races of bees from Italy and Switzerland.— 
Bigelow, Les Etats Unis en 1863, p. 376. 
* A few years ago, a laborer, employed at a North American port in 
discharging a cargo of hides from the opposite extremity of the continent, 
was fatally poisoned by the bite or the sting of an unknown insect, which 
ran out from a hide he was handling. 
t In many insects, some of the stages of life regularly continue for sev¬ 
eral years, and they may, under peculiar circumstances, be almost indefi¬ 
nitely prolonged. Dr. Dwight mentions the following remarkable case of 
this sort, which may he new to many readers: “ While I was here [at 
Williamstown, Mass.], Dr. Fitch showed me an insect, about an inch in 
length, of a browm color tinged with orange, with two antennas, not unlike 
a rosebug. This insect came out of a tea table, made of the boards of an 
apple tree.” Dr. Dwight examined the table, and found the “ cavity 
whence the insect had emerged into the light,” to be “ about two inches 
in length, nearly horizontal, and inclining upward very little, except at the 
mouth. Between the hole, and the outside of the leaf of the table, there 
were forty grains of the wood.” It was supposed that the sawyer and the 
cabinet maker must have removed at least thirteen grains more, and the 
table had been in the possession of its proprietor for twenty years. 
