Where I live I can capture five species of Cigale, the two principal species being the common Cigale and the variety which lives on the flowering ash. Both of these are widely dist...
A convenient home-made net for catching insects; note the broom-stick handle, heavy twisted wire and mosquito net bag. A cyanide jar for killing insects; note the lumps of the dead...
In the chapter on Feeding, it has already been stated that honey is not a natural secretion of the bee, but a substance obtained from the nectaries of the blossoms; it is not there...
The grasshopper or locust is one of the most ancient plagues of cultivated crops. From the earliest time they have destroyed crops. During Moses' sojourn in Egypt they were so dest...
Wax is a natural secretion of the bees; it may be called _their oil or fat_. If they are gorged with honey, or any liquid sweet, and remain quietly clustered together, it is formed...
The Cigale confides its eggs to dry, slender twigs. All the branches examined by Reaumur which bore such eggs were branches of the mulberry: a proof that the person entrusted with...
I made the acquaintance of the Anthrax in 1855 at Carpentras, at the time when the life history of the oil beetles was causing me to search the tall slopes beloved of the Anthophor...
Considered in respect of quality, the food has just disclosed our profound ignorance of the origins of instinct. Success falls to the blusterers, to the imperturbable dogmatists, f...
To encounter among the Hymenoptera, those ardent lovers of flowers, a species which goes a-hunting on its own account is, to say the least of it, astonishing. That the larder of th...
The young queens are supplied with a much larger quantity of food than is allotted to the other larvae, so that they seem almost to float in a thick bed of jelly, and there is usua...
She is named Durand's Clotho (_Clotho Durandi_, LATR.), in memory of him who first called attention to this particular Spider. To enter on eternity under the safe-conduct of a dimi...
If the reader has paid any attention to the story of the Anthrax, he must have perceived that my narrative is incomplete. The fox in the fable saw how the lion's visitors entered h...
I have just witnessed a moving spectacle: the last moult of a locust; the emergence of the adult from its larval envelope. It was magnificent. I am speaking of the Grey Locust, the...
This substance is obtained by the bees from the resinous buds and limbs of trees; and when first gathered, it is usually of a bright golden color, and is exceedingly sticky. The di...
The duties of paternity are seldom imposed on any but the higher animals. They are most notable in the bird; and the furry peoples acquit themselves honourably. Lower in the scale...
In the house fly we find one of man's most deadly foes. War can not compare with the campaigns of disease and death waged by this most filthy of all insects. In our recent strife w...
The orthodox denomination of this insect is _Melolontha fullo_, Lin. It does not answer, I am very well aware, to be difficult in matters of nomenclature; make a noise of some sort...
The pond, the delight of my early childhood, is still a sight whereof my old eyes never tire. What animation in that verdant world! On the warm mud of the edges, the frog's little...
Reaumur (Rene Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur (1683-1757), inventor of the Reaumur thermometer and author of "Memoires pour servir a l'histoire naturelle des insectes."--Translator's...
Peas are held in high esteem by mankind. From remote ages man has endeavoured, by careful culture, to produce larger, tenderer, and sweeter varieties. Of an adaptable character, un...
The numerous efforts which have been made for the last fifty years or more, to dispense with natural swarming, plainly indicate the anxiety of Apiarians to find some better mode of...
My house shelters no specimens of the domestic Cricket, the guest of bakeries and rustic hearths. But although in my village the chinks under the hearthstones are mute, the nights...
In the matter of physics we hear of nothing to-day but the Roentgen rays, which penetrate opaque bodies and photograph the invisible. A splendid discovery; but nothing very remarka...
We are in the middle of July. The astronomical dog-days are just beginning; but in reality the torrid season has anticipated the calendar and for some weeks past the heat has been...
We are in the middle of July. The astronomical dog-days are just beginning; but in reality the torrid season has anticipated the calendar and for some weeks past the heat has been...
The peasant, as he trims his hedge, whose riotous tangle threatens to encroach upon the road, cuts the trailing stems of the bramble a foot or two from the ground and leaves the ro...
Of all the numerous enemies of the honey-bee, the Bee-Moth (Tinea mellonella,) in climates of hot Summers, is by far, the most to be dreaded. So wide spread and fatal have been its...
Some insects may be very destructive to crops, others are beneficial, while the majority of insects are of no importance to man or agriculture. The various forms of pests such as t...
To meet among the Wasps, those eager lovers of flowers, a species that goes hunting more or less on its own account is certainly a notable event. That the larder of the grub should...
After you have learned all you can about the habits of the grasshopper in the field, catch a few of them and take them home and put them in a glass fruit jar. Collect green leaves...