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PACKARD.] INSECTS OF THE FOREST. 
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9. Insects af the Farest. 
T he insects of the forest comprise a large proportion of 
the entomological riches of the world. Those coun¬ 
tries which have the most extensive forests have the 
greatest number and variety of insects. The tropics, par¬ 
ticularly Brazil and the East Indies, sustain the richest 
assemblage of insect forms in the world. Their number 
and beauty diminish as we go north or south. Luxuriance 
of forests with great heat and moisture produces the widest 
diversity of forms and richness of hues. A large proportion 
of the insects sent home by collectors from tropical coun¬ 
tries are the butterflies and large showy moths, with boring 
beetles, the Scarabeids preying on rotten trees, timber bee¬ 
tles of all descriptions, and the parasitic or predaceous forms 
which keep them in check. In the tropics when a tree dies 
it must be removed to make room and supply food for the 
growth of others. A wound made by some accident, such 
as the fall of an adjoining tree, the browsing of deer or 
bears, the gnawing teeth of mice or rats, leaves a scar, a 
weak place, which is immediately utilized by some boring 
insect as a place to deposit itS eggs. Borers and timber 
beetles of many different kinds, with varied modes of attack 
run their galleries under the bark, or bore into the sap wood 
or straight into the heart of the tree. Their presence invites 
a horde of smaller invaders. Their parasites seek them and 
fall upon them until the tree and perhaps its neighbors are 
thoroughly worm eaten, when a tornado rushes through the 
forest and leaves its track behind, marked by a holocaust 
of fallen trees. Now these must, by the natural forestry 
practised on a gigantic scale in nature, be removed. Squads 
of Hercules beetles, Passali, and other devourers of decayed 
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