Insects

“ A crowd of insects, flies, and bees, and beetles are coming out of their long hiding to sun their stiffened limbs. Butterflies flit lightly down the hedge-row, some newly waked from sleep, and some that have but just broken the dry husk of their chrysalis condition, and are spreading for the first time their beautiful wings. ”

“ Through the activity of these insects very little horse-dung, save that which is trodden, is seen on the roads. They work summer and winter, and as one marches in the sun, with one’s eyes on the ground, one is astonished at the myriads of these beetles. ”

“ THE MICROSCOPE AND INSECT LIFE Some of our readers will probably remark that entomology, or the natural history of insects, is really a branch of zoology and should be treated as such. We cannot pretend that they are wrong, but it is such a specialized branch that it merits separate treatment. Not many years ago insects, with few exceptions, were looked upon as harmless and often beautiful dwellers upon the earth. ”

“ Comparatively small as insects are, they are of vast importance collectively; and there is hardly a leaf of a tree, a blade of grass, or a square inch of ground, where we may not trace the work of some insect. Nearly all strange and curious objects that are noticed by observant eyes in the woods or fields are caused by the action of insects, and are often the insects themselves, in one or other of the phases of their varied life. Certain examples of insect life, and its effects, will now be given. ”

“ Again, going back of the larval period, and studying the insect in the egg, we find that nearly all the insects yet observed agree most strikingly in their mode of growth, so that, for instance, the earlier stages of the germ of a bee, fly or beetle, bear a remarkable resemblance to each other, and suggest again, more forcibly than when we examine the larval condition, that a common design or pattern at first pervades all. ”

“ The analogy between the colours, the dispositions, and the qualities of insects, may yet be greater, and between insects, and the plants on which they feed, still more useful; for if an insect is found in one part of the world to feed on a plant useful in food, medicine, or manufactures, an insect of a similar appearance, in another part of the world, will in all probability be found to feed on a plant of similar virtues. We do not know but insects may affect, when perfect, to frequent different soils ”

“ INSECTS.
There is nothing more beautiful, wonderful and interesting than insect life; there is nothing that offers a wider field for examination or affords more gratifying results. Under the head of insects are classed, in popular language, all the minute animals; but only those having six legs and two antennæ, and which undergo one or more changes or metamorphoses should be included; most of them have wings, and their name is derived from the word insecta, divided, which is applied to the divisions or articulations of their bodies. ”

“ The peculiarly leaf-like shape of the insect and its bright green colour render its discovery amongst the herbage a most difficult matter, even when its whereabouts is indicated by its cry—in fact, were it not for their music, there is little doubt that very few of these insects would ever be captured, as they are practically invisible, and are an instance of protective resemblance carried to great perfection. ”

“ On this same principle of being mistaken for something that is safe from attack or annoyance, all sorts of animals, and in a special degree insects, have come to look like various objects around them, and amidst which they live, such as stems of grass, pieces of moss or stick, leaves, flowers, and so on—some of the resemblances being more special and extraordinary. ”

“ What is an Insect? When we remember that the insects alone comprise four-fifths of the animal kingdom, and that there are upwards of 200,000 living species, it would seem a hopeless task to define what an insect is. But a common plan pervades the structure of them all. The bodies of all insects consist of a succession of rings, or segments, more or less hardened by the deposition of a chemical substance called chitine; these rings are arranged in three groups: the head, the thorax, or middle body, and the abdomen or hind body. ”

“ We shall now proceed to a description of insects, a subject replete with endless difficulties. Insects are numerous, and form many species, and their mode of life is like that of the terrestrial animals and the birds. Some, like bees, are furnished with wings; others are divided into those kinds which have wings, and those which are without them, such as ants; while others, again, are destitute of both wings and feet. ”

“ It may be asked, perhaps, how these Insects came to destroy the Turneps only, and not touch the other Greens of the Fields, as Cabbages, Carrots, Parsnips, and the like? Every Herb has its peculiar Insect, like the Trees I [Pg 39] have mention’d: Nay more than this, the Insects which Nature hath design’d to prey upon the Flower of a Plant, will not eat the Leaves, or any other Part of the same Plant. ”

“ Surely, Nature moves in mysterious ways.
Insects are the chief marriage priests of the plant world, but in the tropics they are aided and abetted by Humming-Birds, Sun-Birds and Lories, which are all provided with long, tubular tongues. ”

“ But detailed study of these various groups of insects shows that beneath their common superficial resemblances lie important distinctions in structure, and essential differences in the course of the life-history. Some of the families—the stone-flies, for example—have the young insect much like the adult, growing its wings visibly outside the thoracic segments, and active at all stages of its life. ”

“ We are now considering insects from the standpoint of their life-histories, and the individual life-story of an insect of which we possess but a few fragments of wings or body, entombed in a rock formed possibly before the period of the Coal Measures, can only be a matter of inference. ”

“ I will now give my readers a short chapter upon insects in general, extracted from Aunt Betsey Piper’s talk to her inquisitive nephew.
Insects are so called because they appear to be divided into two parts, and the word insect means cut apart. The insect tribe are divided by naturalists into several orders. The first consists of those that never have wings, as the spider, flea, louse, &c. ”

“ It is not surprising, then, that the insects, by reason of the never-ending marvel of their transformations, hold first place in every course of nature study in our modern schools, or that nature writers of all times have round a principal source of inspiration in the "wonders of insect lire." ”

“ All insects breathe, not through their mouth, but through pores or holes along the sides of their bodies; or, as in the crabs and lobsters, by means of gills. The skin of insects is, in general, of hard or bony consistence, divided into plates or joints which admit of some degree of motion, and is generally clad with very short hairs. ”

“ The insects are generally the colour of the hairs, and are not easy to distinguish.
All those insects mentioned here have so arranged their life histories that they come into existence exactly at the proper season. The warmth of the sun, which opens the apple buds ever so slightly, stirs also the egg of the mite, the egg of the beetle, or the hibernating weevil, so that all these insect populations come into full active life just when they can do the most damage. ”

“ He tells us of a naturalist who had found out a shorter cut to the production of animal life, who thought it not impossible that the first insects were the anthers and stigmas of flowers, which had by some means loosened themselves, from their parent plant, and that other insects in process of time had been formed from these; some acquiring wings, others fins, and others claws, from their ceaseless efforts to procure food, or to secure themselves from injury. ”

“ It may now perhaps be appreciated how intimate are the relations between the form and habits of insects and the structure and coloration of flowers. Our standards of beauty have largely been created for us through Insect and Sexual Selection. If insects had not been developed on the earth, plants would not be ornamented by beautiful flowers, but would show only such poor and inconspicuous ones as are found on grasses, on oak, ash, and fir trees. ”

“ Had we more space for the exposition of many known facts, the sceptic might perceive that by observing how arbitrary and dependent on the habits of the insects are the metamorphoses of some groups, the fixed modes of other and more general groups may be seen to be probably due to biological causes, or in other words have been acquired through changes of habits or of the temperature of the seasons and of climates. ”

“ The Dispersal of Insects.—In the enormous group of insects the means of dispersal among land animals reach their maximum. Many of them have great powers of flight, and from their extreme lightness they can be carried immense distances by gales of wind. ”

“ A beautifully illustrated volume for young people, in which the habits, humors, and eccentricities of insects are delightfully described. The secrets and charms of insect-land are laid open by her vivacious pen, and the astonishing insects are described in a manner that makes them personal acquaintances. ”

“ One day the Lord gathered together all the insects in the world, all the beetles, bugs, bees, mosquitoes, ants, locusts, grasshoppers, and other creatures who fly or hop or crawl, and shut them up in a huge sack well tied at the end. ”

“ In many orders of insects there are whole families whose larvae are habitually carnivorous, feeding entirely upon other kinds of insects. This is especially so in case of the beetles, the flies, the true bugs, and the great order to which the bees and wasps belong. ”

“ All insects are, in a broad way, referable to one or the other of these seven primary orders by the structure of the wings and the character of the mouth-parts in the imago, and by the nature of their transformations. ”

“ For example, if you watch the different kinds of grasses, sedges and rushes, which have such tiny flowers that you can scarcely see them, you will find that no insects visit them. Neither will you ever find bees buzzing round oak-trees, nut-trees, willows, elms or birches. But on the pretty and sweet-smelling apple- blossoms, or the strongly scented lime-trees, you will find bees, wasps, and plenty of other insects. ”

“ The insects were branching out into new forms during the time when birds had teeth and were being evolved from their reptile ancestors, and when the flowering plants were beginning to decorate the land- scape; they were present from the beginning of the age of mammals toits culmination in the great fur-bearing creatures but recently extinct; they attended the advent of man and have followed man's whole evolution to the present rime; they are with us yet--a vigorous race that
INSECTS
shows no sign of weakening or of decrease in numbers. ”

“ The work of different kinds of insects, as represented by special injuries to forest products, is the first thing to attract attention, and the distinctive character of this work is easily observed, while the insect responsible for it is seldom seen, or it is so difficult to determine by the general observer from descriptions or illustrations that the species is rarely recognized. ”

“ C, the Caddis Larva itself, enlarged.
The second point of interest is the wonderful part which has been played by insects in modifying the world we live in. We owe the bright colours and the sweet honey of flowers to the selection exercised by insects; they carry the pollen of flowers from one plant to its neighbouring kindred, thus securing cross-fertilization for the advantage of the plant, and thereby perpetuating [91] any quality, such as colour or sweetness, which has originally attracted the insect to the flower. ”

“ Reviewing briefly the esthetic contributions of the major groups of insects, we find that the grasshoppers have produced a tribe of musicians; the sucking bugs have evolved the cicada; the beetles have given us the scarab, the glow-worm, and the firefly; the moths and butterflies have enriched the world with elegance and beauty ”

“ Who would suspect that numbers of insects are appointed to live, during the greatest part of their lives, within the bodies of other animals, many of whom receive no material injury thereby; some become frantic and {xv}diseased, and others are doomed to perish, and by their deaths give birth to these their inbred enemies? ”

“ Neither are insects in greater plenty than birds; a few butterflies and beetles, flesh-flies very like those in Europe, mosquitos and sand-flies, perhaps exactly the same as those of North America, make up the whole list. ”

“ A survey of the multitudes of insect larvae—grubs, caterpillars, maggots—living on land, on plants, underground, in the water; feeding on leaves, in stems, on roots, on carrion, on refuse; by hunting or by lurking after prey; as parasites or as scavengers, brings home to us most strongly the conclusion that each larva is fitted to some little niche in the vast temple of life, each is specially adapted to its part in the great drama of being. ”

“ The various actions of insects and of invertebrate animals generally are, however, found to be easily capable of classification. They are, in the main, subservient to the pursuit and capture of prey, to the avoidance of enemies, to the union of the sexes, or to the care of their young. ”

“ To be sure, we can find bugs, black, brown, green and grey, but the mere presence of an insect is nothing, though with many, it seems enough, when a tree is blighted, if a bug is found on it, to determine the parentage of the mischief. Nor do the published accounts of insects, found on blighted trees, increase our respect for this theory. ”