226 
HALF HOURS WITH LNSECTS. 
[Packard. 
wood, luxuriate in the mouldering trunks. In an incredibly 
short space of time, aided by ants and Termites, the pros¬ 
trate trunks are converted by the alchemy of nature into a 
mound of soil crowned by ferns and climbing plants, out of 
which will spring a new growth to take the place of the for¬ 
mer generation. Many tropical trees are flowering plants, 
and immense throngs of gaudy Cetonias, Goliath beetles, 
and others of smaller stature frequent the blossoms for pol¬ 
len, and fertilize the flowers of the trees. Nature, lavish of 
her ornaments in the tropics, hangs her stateliest trees with 
climbing vines, creepers and strange, bizarre orchids which 
attract multitudes of hawk moths and butterflies, whose gay 
colors light up the sombre glades of the primitive forests. 
Thus the forests are populated with hundreds of thousands 
of insect forms. 
So luxuriant and rapid is the growth of forests in the trop¬ 
ics that they apparently are in the aggregate little affected 
by the ravages of insects. The latter on the whole rather 
serve to prune and check the growth of portions of the tree, 
to weed out the weaker, imperfect individuals and aid in 
the development of the stronger, and when a tree shows 
signs of decay to at once raze it to the ground and convert 
it into the soil from which it sprang. 
Not so in the temperate regions of the earth, where man 
in subduing the forest exceeds his commission and well nigh 
exterminates it, leaving but scattered patches of the original 
forest primeval. In travelling through the pine forests of 
northern Maine, where the lumberers have made great gaps 
in the ranks of sturdy trees which formerly crowded the 
banks of the Kennebec, Penobscot, Alleguash and St. John, 
one may walk through the woods for miles and be struck 
with the poverty of insect life. Let him in a warm July or 
August day come out into a clearing where the lumberer’s 
camp or lonely farm house is shaded by scattered trees, and 
he will be astonished at the number and variety of insect 
2 
