Sse ce ae een SERENE Se ee N EE Suea bt EER RS ; S Pee ee Le aS SS Se SPT ER Ee ET ON @ Sh@htOO TOEO O WINN AUQU AULA AI OCU ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA LIBRARY OF MODERN SCIENCES A popular series treating their influence on the development of civilization EDITORS EpwIn E. Stosson, PH.D. Editor, Science Service, author of “‘Creative Chemistry.” M. LucxtesH, M.S. H. E. Howe, M.S. Director, Lighting Research Editor, Industrial and Engi- Laboratory, National Lamp neering Chemistry. Works of General Electric Co. CHEMISTRY IN MODERN LIFE, by Svante ARRHENIUS, Director of the Nobel Institute, translated by Clifford S. Leonard, Fellow National Research Council: Department of Pharmacology, Yale University. THE SOIL AND CIVILIZATION, by Mitton Wuitnevy, Chief of the Bureau of Soils of the United States Department of Agriculture. FOUNDATIONS OF THE UNIVERSE, by M. Luckiesu, Director, Lighting Research Laboratory, National Lamp Works of General Electric Company. ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA, by AvsTIN CLark, Curator of the Smithsonian Institution. THE EARTH AND THE STARS, by C. G. Axssor, Assistant Secretary, Smithsonian Institution. IN PREPARATION: THE MYSTERY OF MIND, by LEonarp Tro ann, Professor of Physics and Psychology, Harvard University. CHEMISTRY IN THE WORLD’S WORK, by H.E. Howe, Editor, Industrial and Engineering Chemistry. SCIENCE AND INVENTION, by Atrrep J. Lorka, Professor, Johns Hopkins University. ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA BY AUSTIN: TH. (CLARK SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION NEW YORK D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY EIGHT WARREN STREET 1925 COPYRIGHT, 1025, BY D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. BY THE PLIMPTON PRESS, NORWOOD, MASS. PREFACE In the following pages an attempt is made to present the animal world as a living unit, showing the interrelationships of the various divisions, and the relations of the whole to the plant world, to physical conditions, and to man. Such a treat- ment is complementary to the usual one in which the various animal types are taken up in sequence and separately dis- cussed. The ascertained facts concerning the various forms of animal life mentioned in the succeeding chapters are so very widely scattered through such a vast number of publications that it has not been possible to give references to the original sources consulted in the preparation of this book; indeed, an adequate bibliography would occupy more space than the entire text. Few people, perhaps, realize that the mere recitation of the names of the insects already known to us at the rate of four a minute for eight hours every day would require about ten months, and nearly three months additional would be required to name the remaining forms of animal life. Yet the name of an animal alone is nothing more than a key to its relation- ships and the clue by means of which we are enabled to search out in our libraries the information in regard to it. It is unfortunately quite impossible to give a complete list of all those numerous friends who have been so kind as to make suggestions of various sorts in regard to the treatment of different animal types, and to check up for me statements made concerning animals with which I have only a slight personal acquaintance. I am under special obligations to Dr. John C. Merriam, Dr. Walter K. Fisher, Dr. Asa C. Chandler, Dr. John M. Aldrich, Dr. James A. Hyslop and Dr. Adam Boéving, who were so good as to read almost the entire manuscript; to Dr. Henry B. Bigelow, who reviewed the section dealing with the biology 7 Vl PREFACE of the sea; to Dr. Henry B. Ward, who looked over the por- tion dealing with the biology of fresh waters; and to Dr. Charles W. Richmond, Dr. Alexander Wetmore, Dr. Thomas Barbour, Dr. Albert Mann, Dr. Waldo L. Schmitt, Mr. Ray- mond C. Shannon, Mr. Herbert S. Barber and Mr. Clarence R. Shoemaker to whom certain sections were referred. Messrs. Wetmore, Shannon, A. N. Caudell and Barber were so generous as to provide me with hitherto unpublished in- formation from their personal notes, and I owe to Mr. Barber the remarkable photographs of flies and moths reproduced on the plates. For the most part the figures are taken from previous publications by other authors, to whom they are accredited. Those with the designation “Bur. Ent.” are from the publi- cations of the Bureau of Entomology, Department of Agri- culture; “Bur. Fish.’ indicates the Bureau of Fisheries, Department of Commerce; “U.S. N. M.” stands for the United States National Museum; and ‘“S.I.” for the Smithsonian Institution. To Mr. Samuel Henshaw, the Director of the Museum of Comparative Zodlogy at Cambridge, Massachusetts, I am deeply indebted for permission to reproduce those figures which are taken from the publications of that institution, and I am under similar obligations to the Cambridge University Press, of Cambridge, England. Except for those portraying insects the plates are all from photographs of living animals taken at the National Zoological Park (Smithsonian Institution), Washington, D.C., which were most generously given me by the late Mr. Ned Hollister, the Superintendent. In the preparation of the text figures I have had the able assistance of Miss Doris M. Cochran, and for aid in the biblio- graphic work upon the insects I am greatly indebted to Miss Frances M. Appleby. April 16, 1925 AUSTIN H. CLARK JETRO oe Ee ue ae BIOLOGY AND HUMAN WELFARE ANIMAL NAMES HuMAN Foops . Maw AS Foop FoR ANIMALS. CONTENTS . Man’s PLACE IN THE WEB OF LIFE Man’s CuHtzF COMPETITORS, THE INSECTS . More AsouTt INSECTS. THE Foop oF THE OTHER LAND ANIMALS . ANIMAL FLIGHT. Tue Larcest LivING CREATURES Tue Basis oF LIFE IN THE SEA . THE INTERMEDIATE FOODS OF TH THE SEA SHORES THE DEEP SEA ANIMALS THE OCEAN AND THE LAND . FRESH WATER ANIMALS. . . Livinc Lames . Lire’s BORDERLANDS .. . THE IMPORTANCE OF BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH . E SEA. vu av7 30 PAGE 243 eet , We mene rs a. ! — LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURE Tue VII. XI. PLATE I The Brazilian Tapir (Tapirus terrestris). Courtesy of the National Zoologica Park. fi. 005.0 0b Nelacise nee BO ee . The Wart Hog (Phacochoerus aethiopicus); an African wild pig. @ourtesy of the) National! Zoological Parks 9222-22444 cee eee ee PLATE II Upper, a Solenodon (Solenodon paradoxus) from Haiti; lower, the Collared Peccary (Pecari angulatus), an American wild pig. Courtesy ofthe NationallZoclopicall) Park... 2.) as eee ee aoe ee eee . The Great Anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla). Courtesy of the INationaleZoologicall Park: 25.2505 cis.sc1se ee Seen Le eee PraTE III . Upper, the Two-toed Sloth (Choloepus didactylus); lower, the Hairy Armadillo (Euphractus villosus). Courtesy of the National Zodlogi- CALBR Aiki ie enact eons 5 Foo ch ohne Mee ee eee . Upper, the Tasmanian Devil (Sarcophilus harrisii); lower, the Aus- tralian Spiny Anteater (Tachyglossus aculeatus) a curious mammal that lays eggs like a bird. Courtesy of the National Zodlogical AT KA eee tetas Stal Regie ind st'asie ae saree te eee A pair of the very scarce Hawaiian Geese (Nesochen sandvicensis); only a few of these birds are still in existence. Courtesy of the Na- tional ZoGlogical Park........ EEA Sao mo co die bans one Gee PLATE IV Left, the Bean Goose (Anser fabalis); right, the Maribou Stork or Adjutant (Leptoptilos dubius). Courtesy of the National Zodlogical IE eis Keeper rrred pect appt rot 3, aus ce RS © indie Sapelena tacts oon Ee eae . The ‘Double Yellow-head,” a Central American Amazon Parrot (A mazona oratrix). Courtesy of the National Zoélogical Park...... . Upper, the Harpy Eagle (Thrasaétos harpyia) of tropical America; this bird lived for 18 years in Washington; lower, the Californian Condor (Gymnogyps californianus), our largest flying bird, now rare and restricted to parts of southern and Lower California. Courtesy OlithesNationalyZoolopicalaarkeenas 4m saeecn oie eee eee PLATE V Left, the African Black Vulture (Torgos tracheliotus); right, the South American Condor (Vultur gryphus), a rival of our Californian Condor for the title of the largest flying bird. Courtesy of the National; Zoological Park. :: 2) 2..::0555.<:seanneeee ee eee tade ee en PAGE I2 I2 16 16 16 22 Xx FIGURE XII. XIII. XIV. XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII. ILLUSTRATIONS Upper, a Cassowary (Casuarius galeatus) from the island of Ceram in the Moluccas; lower, the South American King Vulture (Sarcoramphus papa). Courtesy of the National Zodlogical Park... Pirate VI Upper, a group of European Flamingos (Phoenicopterus roseus); lower, two American Egrets (Casmerodius egretta). Courtesy of the National’ Zoclogicaléarkeene ere mnt ate erent Pirate VII A Galapagos Giant Tortoise (Testudo vicina) from Albemarle Island in the Galapagos group. Courtesy of the National Zodlogical Upper, the Matamata (Chelys fimbriata), a South American fresh water turtle; photograph by William Palmer of a specimen at the National Zodlogical Park; lower, the Gila Monster (Heloderma suspectum). Courtesy of the National Zodlogical Park..........-.- Pirate VIII Upper left, a Fungus Gnat (Cerotelion bellulus) which habitually alights on spider webs; upper right, a Robber or Asilid Fly (Om- matius marginellus) devouring another fly; middle right, a moth (Lygris diversilineata) showing the curious resting position; lower right, the same moth in side view; lower left, a moth (Carama cretata) in resting position; lower middle, the same moth, back view. Photographs by Mir. iio. Barber... a). a... 2s) 5-)- eer Prate IX Upper left, a West Indian Fire-fly (Pyrophorus noctilucus) seen from the lower side, showing the large light organ; photograph by Dr. James A. Hyslop; upper right, a moth (Schizura leptinoides) in resting position; photograph by Mr. H. S. Barber; lower right, another moth (Janassa semirufescens) in resting position; photograph by Mr. H.S. Barber; center, an acrobatic moth (Adoneta spinuloides) in resting position; photograph by Mr. H.S. Barber; middle left, a curious and rare pyralid moth (Meskea dyspteraria) from eastern Texas, showing the attitude at rest; the caterpillars of this moth live in stem galls on Malviscus and Abutilon, plants related to the cotton; photograph by Mr. H. S. Barber; lower left, a pair of the same, upper female, lower male; photograph by Mr. H. S. Barber........ PLATE X Upper, the pyralid moth (Meskea dyspteraria) given in the preceding figure showing the attitude at rest on a flat surface; lower left, the moth (Ianassa semirufescens) shown in dorsal view in the preceding figure, lower right; lower right, the moth (Schizura leptinoides) shown in dorsal view in the preceding figure, upper right. Photographs by MEER SS Barber rcciisc oj ore nn seine exe ce ree ers ler ogsi oa) heer eater PAGE 22 39 30 34 38 ILLUSTRATIONS TEXT FIGURES FIGURE I. . The same, side view. U.S. N. M . A Liparid (Careproctus acanthodes) from the Gulf of Tartary. From . The Lake Trout (Cristivomer namaycush). Bur. Fish _ The Brook Trout (Salvelinus fontinalis). Bur. Fish . A Flying-fish (Cypsilurus spilonotopterus) with the “wings” raised. . A Snipe-eel (Avocettina gilli), a fish from deep water. Bur. Fish . The Tundra Fish (Dallia pectoralis). In the winter this fish is frozen . A Pipe-fish (Sygnathus pellegrini). U.S. N.M . A Loach (Lefua echigonia) from Japan. From Jordan and Richardson, The Cave Salamander (Spelerpes maculicaudus); a melanistic individual from Marble Cave, Missouri. From Banta and McAtee, U.S. N. M... Gilbert and Burke, U.S. N. M . Abrilliantly colored reef fish (Holacanthus potter) from Honolulu. From Jordan and Metz, U.S. N. M . Another reef fish (Chromis verater) from Honolulu. From Jordan and PRU SON Moe cf osc ce ccinle aoa stale ae ee ee . A Butterfly Fish (Chaetodon argentatus) from the Philippine Islands. From Smith and Radcliffe, U.S. N. M . Another Butterfly Fish (Holacanthus multifasciatus) from the Philippine Islands. From Smith and Radcliffe, U.S. N. M From Jordan and Dickerson, U.S. N. M . Another Flying-fish (Cypsilurus agoo) as it appears under water. From Jordan and Starks, U.S. N. M _ A Trigger-fish (Balistes polylepis) from Peru. From Evermann and RECO GUS NPPM fn. ac et ere . A Ballyhoo or Half-beak (Hemiramphus balao) from Cuba. From WordanuUe GaN MVie ree mci 2. Fete (eters So inin ete n er toe . A Moray (Gymnothorax wieneri) from Peru. From Evermann and Re rcdeliife, We SeNs Mactan cisco Joel ae inae sai tay Sis nrole, etm conesictanoe meee . The Atka Mackerel (Pleurogrammus monopterygius), a very important food fish in the Aleutian Islands; it is not even remotely related to any true mackerel. Bur. Fish solid, but it becomes as lively as ever again when thawed out. Bur. TERS Lee eee eee er ere eres hee ERG Dr Ce acre iRrs cave Nore fate op Meron tage _ A Tritri (Sicydium buscki) from Haiti; the young in the West Indies are eaten under the name of “ white-bait,” a term properly applied to salmon fry. From Evermann and Clark, U.S. N. M U.S. N. M . The great Fork-tailed Cat of the Mississippi (Ictalurus furcatus); this fish reaches a weight of 210 pounds. Bur. Fish _ A fresh water fish (Mormyrus goheeni) from Liberia. From Fowler, ei vieel cia ere ee) aia ’e wid) aleip) io) 9. e)\o la eke) evctisse ra Xl PAGE 48 48 48 48 48 48 54 5 56 56 56 56 xii ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURE 23. Asea Cat-fish (Galeichthys qnilbertt)... (UES FISH soy, = ic: ..2. oe 7 ace ose eeeene eee 66. A Pyrosome, consisting of a hollow cylinder of closely packed tunicates. BR OMIBAURAICASSIZ. eee ays eck otag- cc: > Scola taseoh eke cee ee te eee 67. A curious Crustacean (Phronema) which lives within free-swimming (eNKES, ios, AES 6 boagoooghodcduogmeacnsocascaccuussos 68. The same within a tunicate. From A. Agassiz..................... 69. A Cephalodiscid (Cephalodiscus dodecalophus). From the “Challenger” IN CDOLUS Herel potest peeee Sc eteces vss Soshk lgnanvs tai atk Achmad ee ee eee 70. A Rhabdopleurid (Rhabdopleura normani). From Lankester.......... 71. An African Swallow-tailed Butterfly (Papilio merope), male.......... Fe mebl ease Tae sPeLN ae toys tee el ic nites fs! 5x fie ye/tid woe aiecs «gin sth hes eee 73. An Indian Swallow-tail (Papilio agetes)...... 2622 ees e ewes en ee 74. Another Indian Swallow-tail (Papilio pompilius).................... 75. A Javanese Swallow-tail (Papilio coon).:.............06+0++s esse. 76. A curious Indian Swallow-tail (Papilio evan)..................0000.. 77. A characteristic alpine butterfly (Parnassius apollo); from a specimen fromychamountxacaurhtipy, therauthor-e. v4.2 ce 2 eee eee 78. The Alder Butterfly (Feniseca tarquinius), the caterpillar of which feeds on aphids; from a specimen from Newtonville, Mass., reared by the ALLEN Tape eetter tere Srerohe eg sh teloyciaee anette Dee Biss emt Poe ee xiil PAGE XiV ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURE PAGE 79. A curious suffused variety of the Turtle-head Butterfly (Euphydryas phaéton var. superba); froma specimen from Newtonville, Mass., caught by the author, From A. H. Clark/ U"S Nee ese gen ae eee 84 80. The Wall Butterfly (Pararge megera), male; from a specimen from Interlaken, Switzerland, caught by the author...................... 84 81. A scarlet and black butterfly (Catagramma pitheas) from Colombia.... 84 82. A delicate little butterfly (Hypocysta antirius) from Australia......... 84 83. A common European day-flying moth (Zygaena lonicerae); from a specimen from Chamounix caught by the author.................... 84 84. A pupa or chrysalis of the Alder Butterfly (Feniseca tarquinius) with the anterior (lower) end slightly raised, showing the curious resemblance to a monkeys taceasErom Weston) Massie mceecren eer creieririeetre 84 8s. The: same) lying fate 3 5ni8 sik of. op stom way neve ener ey eee meee 84 86. Thetsamestiromuthe:sid@es,., ciic.s feratmrsicte:aclet si oe rer earn aa 84 87, Thessame; lower surfaces. si .< dei... cid at 2s JOS oy eee ee 84 88. A Chirping or Whip-cracker Butterfly (A geronia fumosa) from Colom- [81 ene ey er ee ere RR Ree I SE Ao docob aot 86 89. A very handsome day-flying moth (Urania sloanus) from Jamaica... .. 86 go. A Sphinx or Hawk Moth (Deilephila euphorbiae) which feeds on the sea- side spurge! (Euphorbiaeparalvas) en areca eee eee eee 86 or. The Pandora Moth (Coloradia pandora). ... 2... 0.2.2 een cee aenneen 86 2. Caterpillars of the Pandora Moth dried and ready for use as food..... 86 93. The Southern Grass-worm, or Fall Army-worm, Moth (Laphygma Sruciperda). But. Mt, 5. sorec css Bs es ates She) aa eee eee 88 94. The Cotton Boll-worm Moth (Chloridea obsoleta). Bur. Ent.......... 88 g5. The Cotton Boll Cut-worm Moth (Prodenia ornithogalli), male, dark form. (Burstein sc Geebe Sends anid baeln toe eelelee ct eee 88 06. The/same, female, paleform. Burs Ent.) >... 7d. .<-eqaceeree eee 88 97. A Cut-worm Moth (Agrotis ypsilon). Bur. Ent..................... 88 98. The Cotton Stem Borer (Papaipema mitela). Bur. Ent.............. 88 99. The Leopard Moth (Zeuzera pyrina), female; the caterpillar (fig. 140) 1) Gh COlAmUK cane vyOoLel loyoRee, ION, IM so pocascuoudoccccduocsoonce 89 roow “Rhesame, males Bur nt. 25 ac. see os oe oe ene eee eerie 89 tor. The Cotton Leaf-worm Moth (Alabama argillacea); sometimes visits the north in considerable numbers where it does much damage by punc- tuning drut to obtaimithe juices eB Un En tease eee eee ene eet 89 102. The Sugar-cane Borer Moth (Diatraea saccharalis crambidoides), male. Bits HEM tess cists soos muss oie erase Core ome eee ROLE eae Ona 89 103. The Larger Corn-stalk Borer (Diatraea zeacolella). Bur. Ent.......... 89 104. A carnivorous moth (Erastria scitula) the caterpillar of which (fig. 142) feeds on various scale insects. Bur. Ent., after Rouzard............. 89 tos. The Grape Moth (Polychrosis viteana). Bur. Ent.............:.-..: go 106. The Trumpet Leaf-miner of the apple (Z7scheria malifoliella). Bur. Bits. oi siage ane seul dace ey ato oem ere e neh Sebo sinc eee. sc cremeeneters go TO7, Lhe sale; Testingy POSLEON seb Une Tt eer eeree areca acetate go 108. The Lesser Apple-worm Moth (Enarmonia prunivora). Bur. Ent..... 90 TOO) she/sames restingsposition. burslnt ye rele eee go ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURE 110. The White-marked Tussock Moth (Hemerocampa leucostigma), male; the caterpillar is shown in fig. 152. Bur. Ent....................--.- Tieelhersame, resting: position., Bum, Pints 2 ea. salar. Sette crete) 112. The same species, female; in this sex there are no wings. Bur. Ent..... 113. The Grape Leaf-folder (Desmia funeralis), male. Bur. Ent.......... meee same, female. Bur. Ent... ..,4c.¢eens09nagtee meme seme es 115. The Bag-worm Moth (Thyridopteryx ephemeraeformis), male. Bur. Ent. Tiowelhesame.semale. Bur. Ent:. 2. «couse cee es a eee ee eee 117. The Salt-marsh Caterpillar Moth (Estigmene acraea); the caterpillar iscommonty, called’a “woolly bear.’ Burs (Ents 2s 222. myer ee 118. The Fall Web-worm Moth (Hyphantria cunea). Bur. Ent............ 119. The Case-making Clothes Moth (Tinea pellionella); the commonest of the clothes moths in the northern states. Bur. Ent................. 120. The Webbing Clothes Moth (Tineola biselliella); the commonest of the clothes moths in Washington and southward. Bur. Ent.............. 121. The Tapestry Moth (Trichophaga tapetzella); less common than either of thestworpreceding Burs Ente!) - 2) on..ceccmeree oneoe ee her eoee 122. The Mediterranean Flour Moth (Ephestia kuehniella). Bur. Ent..... Wee the same, with the wings spread. Bur. Ent.. 222. eee see «eee 124. The Indian Meal Moth (Plodia interpunctella). Bur. Ent............ 125. The Meal Snout-moth (Pyralis farinalis). Bur. Ent.......... ....- 126. The Pronuba (Pronuba yuccasella); this moth pollinates the flowers Oi (ale yANCCr a! Fb es 0) nae ee ere AB Sonoma otra oeuC on Anos 127. The False Yucca Moth (Prodoxus decipiens). Bur. Ent.............. TOSeeA temale Pronuba gathermp pollen. Bur: Ent..--2.5-.-------0---~- eaee se bronnba at rest. (Burs Pt. oc. c.tel<. s sSih an se ein sh ee eee 130. The Parsnip Web-worm Moth (Depressaria heracliana). Bur. Ent..... 131. The Potato tuber Borer (Lita solanella), which feeds on stored potatoes. TBYbi RS. TBs le aoe ae On A nS LE Rt aca ras OG coin 132. The Clematis Borer Moth (Acalthoe cordata), male. Bur. Ent......... meee due Same. female -DUt.. TNE. «5/4 asin vise vic'tie Siete ea Wl are ape 134. The Cotton Leaf-worm Moth (Alabama argillacea) in resting position (Seeptinenron) says Urm Nts 2 serine ee ataccers a ereyatany «ste eo sk eeeeeeetets 135. The Cotton Leaf-worm (the caterpillar of the moths shown in figs. ror, TA) Ses UTM ere eos ciel eies See erste Sich olens Mie Huis cass Oe ielels sl Sfereoekee aie "30, Che pupa of the Cotton Leaf-worm. Bur. Ent............5.2.0.- 137. The caterpillar of the Indian Meal Moth (fig. 124). Bur. Ent........ Taooe nersame seen irom aboves OUre | HMC h «ler -1s0e)s) 1-112 ote aielels sel si eteeiat 139. The caterpillar of the Meal Snout-moth (fig. 125). Bur. Ent......... 140. The wood boring caterpillar of the Leopard Moth (figs. 99, 100). otis initey te eve Meier ie hie este eos tec we Biel: Saran o As ehyeiswiee Seite eens 141. The caterpillar of the Webbing Clothes Moth (fig. 120). Bur. Ent..... 142. The caterpillar of a carnivorous moth (fig. 104) in its case, half of which has|been!cut away. bur. Ent. atter Rouzard. >. 5.2 ..5.5-.-.0- 4. - 143. The pupa of the preceding. Bur. Ent., after Rouzard............... 144. The pupa of the Indian Meal Moth (fig. 124). Bur. Ent............. 145. The pupa of the Mediterranean Flour Moth (fig. 122). Bur. Ent...... XV PAGE XvV1 ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURE 146. A Bag-worm (the caterpillar of the moth shown in figs. 115, 116) with its. case or bag: Bur; Ent:.. 2.3 60%. 5.:55c00s400 000 4 eee 147. Dhe same, removed from the bag. Bury Ent... .--- -- 525s , 148. Caterpillar of the Lesser Apple-worm Moth (fig. 108). Bur. Ent....... 149. The Fall Web-worm (the caterpillar of the moth shown in fig. 118). Bats AEG. fat ere astoc Sek ne eye ws 6 Sunavesace le 4 eye telel bce ave oka hee eee T50;, Dhessameé: WBurs dents $5 ceil chas's vin dheieanie.e Oe als oo ee eee 151. A Cut-worm (the caterpillar of the moth shown in fig. 97). Bur GING see a eens a, Soa vas Ses Sasi nas Sel Oa oie Ga te ee eee 152. The caterpillar of the White-marked Tussock Moth (figs. 110-112). A300 eae) Oh 0 eae een nei ey aE a he ee CAUSA Gk Shi Gin G.d:c'o.c.0 05 153. Lhe caterpillar of the Grape Moth (fig. 105). Bur. Ent............... 154. The caterpillar of the Cotton Boll-worm Moth (fig. 94). Bur. Ent..... 155. The caterpillar of the Mediterranean Flour Moth (fig. 122). Bur. Ent.. 156. The caterpillar of the Case-making Clothes Moth (fig. 119). Bur. Ent.. 157. Che same; removed from the case: Bur. Ent... .... 255-0 158. The caterpillar of the Grape Leaf-folder (figs. 113, 114). Bur. Ent..... 159. The Saw-toothed Grain Beetle (Silvanus surinamensis). Bur. Ent... .. 160. The Long-headed Flour Beetle (Latheticus oryzae). Bur. Ent.......... 161. The adult of the Yellow Meal Worm (Tenebrio molitor). Bur. Ent..... 162. The Foreign Grain Beetle (Cathartus advena). Bur. Ent.............. 163. The Slender-horned Flour Beetle (Gnathocerus maxillosus). Bur. Ent.. 164. The Broad-horned Flour Beetle (Gnathocerus cornutus). Bur. Ent...... 165. The Mexican Grain Beetle (Pharaxonotha kirschi). Bur. Ent.........- 166. The Drug-store Beetle (Sitodrepa panicea). Bur. Ent................ 167. ‘The same, side’ view. Bur. Ent... 2. ...0 062.202 2205 ee eee 108. The Cigarette Beetle (Lasioderma serricorne). Bur. Ent............+- 169. Lhe same, sidé view. Bur. Ent>......5.:<.4-.-..+ 5s 170. The Carpet Beetle (Anthrenus scrophulariae). Bur. Ent............8- 17m. Lhe Pea Weevil (Bruchus pisorum). Bur. Ent........40sen eee 172. The Common Bean Weevil (Bruchus obtectus). Bur. Ent.............. 173. The Coffee-bean Weevil (Araecerus fasciculatus). Bur. Ent..........- 174. The Cowpea-pod Weevil (Chalcodermus aeneus). Bur. Ent........ .- 175. The Cowpea Weevil (Bruchus chinensis). Bur. Ent. ......-.s2seeieeee 176. The Broad-bean Weevil (Bruchus rufimanus). Bur. Ent............-- 177. The Cotton Boll Weevil (Anthonomus grandis). Bur. Ent............- 178. Lhe same, with the wings spread. Bur: Ent... -5-)- hee eee 179. The Mexican Bean Weevil (Bruchus lentis). Bur. Ent..............+- 180. The Four-spotted Bean Weevil (Bruchus quadrimaculatus). Bur. Ent. . 181. The Cottonwood-flower Weevil (Dorytomus mucidus). Bur. Ent....... 182. The Mallow Weevil (Anthonomus fulvus). Bur. Ent................+- 183. The Grape Curculio (Craponius inaequalis). Bur. Ent...............- 184. A Weeyil (Conotrachelus erinaceus). Bur. Ent... 4. .055.eeee eee 185. The Southern Pine Weevil (Pissodes nemorensis). Bur. Ent........... 186. The Pecan Gall Weevil (Conotrachelus elegans). Bur. Ent............. 187. The Californian Lead-cable Borer (Scobicza declivis). Bur. Ent........ 188. A June Bug or May Beetle (Phyllophaga cribrosa). From Sanderson. . ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURE 189. 190. Igl. 192. 193. 194. 195. 196. 1Q7- 198. 199. 200. 201. 202. 203. 204. 205. 2006. 207. 208. 209. 210. Pi 212. 213. 214. 205. 2106. 217. 218. 219. 220. 221. 222. 223. 224. 225. 2206. PG 228. 229. 230. 231. 232. 2aise 234. Another May Beetle (Phyllophaga lanceolata). From Sanderson The Shot-hole Borer (Scolytus rugulosus). Bur. Ent...............+-- The Powder-post Beetle (Lyctus planicollis). Bur. Ent............... A Cotton Wire-worm (Monocrepidius vespertinus). Bur. Ent The Peach Curculio (Conotrachelus nenuphur). Bur. Ent............ The Striped Cucumber Beetle (Diabrotica vittata). Bur. Ent.. The Rose-chafer or ‘‘ Rose-bug”’ (Macrodactylus subs pinosus). Bur. Ent. The Grape-root Worm Beetle (Fidia viticida). Bur. Ent............. An enemy of the Boll Weevil (Evarthrus sodalis). Bur. Ent...........- Another enemy of the Boll Weevil (Chauliognathus marginatus). Bur. A Blister Beetle (Epicauta lemniscata). Bur. Ent................--- The Grape-vine Flea Beetle (Haltica chalybea). Bur. Ent............ An enemy of the Boll Weevil (Hydnocera pubescens). Bur. Ent Pupa of the Yellow Meal Worm (figs. 222, 161). Bur. Ent............ Pupa of the Saw-toothed Grain Beetle (figs. 159, 223). Bur. Ent Pupa of the Mexican Grain Beetle (figs. 165, 224). Bur. Ent.......... Pupa of the Slender-horned Flour Beetle (figs. 163, 225). Bur. Ent. . Pupa of the Coffee-bean Weevil (figs. 173, 234). Bur. Ent Pupa of the Drug-store Beetle (figs. 166, 237). Bur. Ent Pupa of the Cigarette Beetle (figs. 168, 233). Bur. Ent...........2... Pupa of the Rose-chafer or “‘ Rose-bug”’ (fig. 195). Bur. Ent Pupa of the Common Bean Weevil (fig. 172). Bur. Ent.............. Pupa of the Cotton Wire-worm (figs. 192, 232). Bur. Ent Pupa of the Cowpea-pod Weevil (fig. 174), Bur. Ent................ Pupa of the Shot-hole Borer (figs. 190, 239). Bur. Ent............... Pupa of the Carpet Beetle or ‘“‘ Buffalo-bug” (figs. 228, 170). Bur. Ent. Rhesames withinithelarvaliskin:) Burbntee..-. 2-6-4. 4--24-be- Pupa of the Cotton Boll Weevil (figs. 177, 238). Bur. Ent Pupa of the Striped Cucumber Beetle (fig. 194). Bur. Ent Rupa of the Pea Weevili\(figs, 171, 230). Bur. Ents. .....- 25.2... Pupa of the Four-spotted Bean Weevil (figs. 180, 231). Bur. Ent uparotsthel Grape Curculion(iess1535 220). DureEnien sears ie cles Bur, Emtss. 2... sce. «= Grub of the Grape-root Worm Beetle (fig. 196). Bur. Ent The “ Buffalo-bug”’ (adult shown in fig. 170). Bur. Ent Grub of the Cowpea Weevil (fig. 175). Bur. Ent Grubronthe Peay Weevilu(ig: ry) Burs Pinto. yee crt sis teeie es Grub of the Four-spotted Bean Weevil (fig. 180). Bur. Ent A Cotton Wire-worm (adult shown in fig. 192). Bur. Ent (rubyor cue Cigarette Beetle (figs 168). Buryimts. <). 0.4.1). ee Grub of the Coffee-bean Weevil (fig. 173). Bur. Ent ee ee ee Pie ec in) oe Cant XVlil ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURE 235. Grub of the Powder-post Beetle (fig. 191). Bur. Ent..............-.- 236. Grub of the Grape-vine Flea Beetle (fig. 200). Bur. Ent.............. 237. Grub of the Drug-store Beetlei(ig-166)s (Burs Ente ea aeeeeeeee 238. Grub of the Cotton Boll Weevil (figs. 177, 178). Bur. Ent............ 239. Grub of the Shot-hole Borer (fig. 190). Bur. Ent.................-. 240. The grub or larva of a West Indian Fire-fly (Pyrophorus luminosus) from Mayaguez, Porto Rico. Courtesy of Dr. James A. Hyslop........... 241. The same on a black background, showing the luminescence. Courtesy of Dr: James As Hyslop as)..212 see ce reree = tere rete tere a eee 242. Pupa of the same Fire-fly in dorsal view. Courtesy of Dr. James A. FL ySlOp | sedate eros aistia tema cathe mais: Specie oe ee ee 243. The same, ventral view. Courtesy of Dr. James A. Hyslop........... 244. Ventral view of the pupa on a black background, showing the lumines- cence. ‘Courtesy of Dr) James A.) Hyslop... ..: 20.2466 -se= ee eeereer 245. The light organ on the under side of another West Indian Fire-fly (Py- rophorus hesperus) from Barracoa, Cuba. Courtesy of Dr. James A. Ply slop vescerid cin «owe nee Gx loneeisleis ahs) =a suse) oes re elas Re 246. A Strepsipteran (Delphacixenos anomalocerus) parasitic on a Fulgorid (Delphax striatella), male. From Pierce, U.S.N.M............-.-.-- 247. A Strepsipteran (Austrostylops gracilipes), male. From Pierce, LA Si Fea Ue ee a a en ee Sa RRS Aint ne AB Uirc 0:0 5 0 248. A Strepsipteran (Pentozoe peradeniya) parasitic on Thompsoniella arcuaia males Brom Pierce, W..o..N. Vines eee eee 249. A Strepsipteran (Dacyrtocara undata) parasitic on a Leaf-hopper (Oncometopia undata, figs. 425, 426), female. From Pierce, U.S. N. M. 250. Ventral view of the triungulinid young of a Strepsipteran (Stylops Swenke)y arom Pierce, Ws S-Ni Meee eerie cay icll eis cicietvoissetee aetna 251. A curious staphylinid beetle (Thyreoxenus pulchellus) found in the nests of white ants or termites (Nasutitermes ephratae) in British Guiana. From A, ea Ol ac ee Peet einer er ok eA ners Go Sica c GG OSS oc 252. Another staphylinid beetle (Eburniola leucogaster) found in the nests of another kind of termite (Nasutitermes guayanae) in British Guiana and drinidads sBromewWe MeMann ee eere erent iste seit tienen 253. A staphylinid beetle (Termitogaster emersoni) found in the nests of ter- mites (Nasutitermes ephratae) in British Guiana and Trinidad. From Mi Yoel ES ERO ea een GE OaeG nose cco torn Sepa cin Goo oootG b5.0.00%.0 254. A staphylinid beetle (Thyreoxenus parviceps) found in the nests of ter- 255. 256. 257 mites (Nasutitermes costalis) in British Guiana and Trinidad. From \ Vi .Y [ety Ita peas ee Bin ea Oe ean Ooo ae on con ca ou aos abepodac A staphylinid beetle (Corymbogaster miranda) found in the nests of quite a different kind of termite (Cornitermes pugnax) in British Guiana. Idicoyoap WMI MIEN hig Gonoooboboo dooce seas opocqodbonnacmoccocds A Pangonid Fly (Pangonia longirostris), related to our Horse-flies; some of these are said to bite after the fashion of a humming-bird feeding on flowers. Attembardwickesmee acme es neenee eee ies seit tar The second stage larva of an Asiatic Lady-bird (Chilocorus bivulnerus). Bur. TEs co acts cyectevere eee ete ake inion ce teeiate rs: sielepstonerotelikereteretelactsnensaens 114 114 II4 II2 I16 116 116 116 ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURE 258. The fully grown larva of the same beetle. Bur. Ent................. 259. The pupa of the same within the larval skin. Bur. Ent.............. 260. A newly emerged beetle, not yet colored. Bur. Ent............. sor. he fully colored and perfect adult:” Bur. Ent... 9.5.2.6... .5 ose" 262. The common House-fly (Musca domestica); probably the most widely distributed of all insects, and the animal most commonly associated with man; a carrier of typhoid and other diseases. After Graham-Smith.. . 263. The Blow-fly (Calliphora vomitoria); occasionally lays its eggs in wounds, etc., in which the maggots live. After Graham-Smith ....... 264. Another common Blow-fly (Calliphora erythrocephala). After Graham- SS TETEE ape rts Seen Fe Ge See ce eS OO SS, Per ayo A ST 265. The Flesh-fly (Sarcophaga carnaria); sometimes lays its eggs in wounds, ClLOmmeAtCene Graham-=SmIthhe wer oc ocean sehiere eies mice ae ncieineat cents 266. The Green Bottle (Lucilia caesar); also a wound infecting fly. After (Gilpin rar en cls ioe aCe Sinai epee tt POU eer etn oe Aa bE 267. The Biting or Stable-fly (Stomoxys calcitrans) which is believed to transmit mechanically a number of diseases; it is commonly mistaken for the House-fly which cannot bite. After Graham-Smith........... 268. The Larger House-fly (Muscina stabulans); a filth frequenting fly which occasionally lives as an internal parasite in man. After Graham- Smit eee ee tgw ery tec be src ed eee aocke ene eee ahs Sain: sen teeta bere ere 269. The Cluster Fly (Pollenia rudis); said to live in excreta and in decaying matter; also said to be parasitic in certain earth-worms. After Graham- Smith wena eerie eee ecto ee arts ra er ioe ee iae 270. The Lesser House-fly (Fannia canicularis); next to the House-fly the commonest fly in houses; occasionally lives as an internal parasite in TMA MeA ters Gra ain= Omni theres acai cleis. cei erates sche weno ler ache este ar= 271. The Biting or Stable-fly (fig. 267) in resting position. From Austen.... 272. The Latrine Fly (Fannia scalaris); occasionally an internal parasite in 278. 279. niin, ier (CrpilommensSyotldel, noes onanomaneanaeenoodsomeodsboodpETe . The Congo Floor-maggot (fig. 339) Fly (Auchmeromyia luteola). From (Graham=s mi there pete ote ee rater aie ie ee ee oe cine a ech . The Tumbu Fly (Cordylobia anthropophaga); the maggots of this fly live beneath the skin. From Graham-Smith........................ . The Maggot Fly (Bengalia depressa), with the habits of the preceding, occurring in southern and southeastern Africa; the adults sometimes steal the pupae from the driver-ants. From Graham-Smith.......... . The Screw-worm (fig. 340) Fly (Chrysomyia macellaria); sometimes lays its eggs in sores, or in the nose, ears, etc., from which the maggots bore imealledirectionss) Hrom) Graham-Smith\yasse eee see eee cl... be tar . A Hippoboscid Fly (Lynchia maura) parasitic on the pigeon; the young are born fully grown and ready to pupate as in the Tsetse Flies. From 1B bieValiS Ges e oo eae Coen Be Steen ORE Go cine cae Oe eG een ror The Horn-fly (Haematobia serrata); a biting fly that annoys cattle; the onearerezoyess IS Tin Copy oliooyes, Is\bie, Wes Gog ne oon. co Hed boon souoconodcae A Hippoboscid Fly (Hippobosca rufipes) parasitic on cattle in South PNAEMeApSPOMAVELINGIC sf aeialivs.cicwsho > crane dewcoe aes sche = emesis esis I22 I22 I22 L222 124 124 124 XX ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURE PAGE 280. The Yellow Dung-fly (Scatophaga stercoraria), male. After Graham- TT at eee Das HOP A gree) ELEN Senn GPE AOD Ot GO 6 oOo 124 281. The same, female. After Graham-Smith. ........:...-+--ss0-0-s se 124 282. A Horse-fly or Gad-fly (Haematopota vittata). From Austen.......... 124 283. A Bibionid Fly (Bibio albipennis). After Washburn................. 124 284. The Cheese or Ham Skipper Fly (Piophila casei); the maggots or “skip- pers” are frequently found in dried or smoked meat, cheese, etc.; sometimes, taken into the stomach, they cause sickness. After Graham-Smiths. of oc.c. eco hascic on eclente< areas Pir Lie nee ee eieier ite 126 285. The same, side view. After Washburn............-..-..++..---005- 126 286. The Window Fly (Scenopinus fenestralis); the very slender maggots feed on the caterpillars of clothes moths and on flea maggots. After Graham- Ginit hci s ccc kane dere we. Satngcs-ssalic tse OG Sgeleudey qohatclenatsn wets ae aeeeaeteee 126 287. The Fruit Fly (Drosophila fenestrarum); a small yellowish fly commonly seen about fruit, jam, etc., in which it breeds. After Graham-Smith... 126 288. The Bee-fly (Eristalis tenax), which is often mistaken for the honey bee; the rat-tailed maggots found in decaying substances in water or in wet decaying flesh are the young of this fly. After Kellogg..............- 126 289. The Raven Fly (Musca corvina), male; a country relative of the house- fly. After Graham-Smith cg. 225. 200 ayo .s cclsm)s eee oot 126 290. The same, female. After Graham-Smith............--.-+-+s+eeeess 126 291. An African fly (Pycnosoma marginale) with the habits of the house-fly. . After Graham-Smith «22022522 cere erties ee eee 126 292. Another similar fly (Pycnosoma chloropyga) from southern and south- eastern) Adricass rom) Graham-oiaithieey are oe te ieee eee 126 293. A related fly (Pycnosoma putorium). From Graham-Smith.........-. 126 294. A curious little fly (Platypeza, sp.). After Washburn...........-..--. 126 295. A Fungus Gnat (Sciara, sp.). After Washburn...............-...-- 126 296. A small fly (Oscinis pallipes) believed to be responsible for the spread of yaws in the West Indies. From Graham-Smith................--- 126 297. A strange little fly (Calobata univittata), After Washburn.........--- 126 298. An Owl-midge or Moth-fly (Psychoda, sp.). From Graham-Smith..... 126 299. Our native Stalk-eyed Fly (Sphyracephala brevicornis). After Willis- 10010 erie a A en OOOO deo MO MO Gora A pDOOo¢ 130 300. A foreign Stalk-eyed Fly (Diopsis, sp.). After Williston............ 130 301. A Blepharocerid Fly (Bibiocephala elegantula). After Kellogg......-.- 130 302. A Phorid (Puliciphora, sp.). After Williston... ........----++eeeee I30 303. An Agromyzid (Ochthiphila polystigma). After Williston........-..-- 130 304. An Agromyzid (Phytomyza, sp.). After Williston............+++++++ 130 305. An Agromyzid (Agromyza, sp.). After Williston. ...........++++-055 130 306. An Agromyzid (Paramyia, sp.). After Williston...........-++++++5 130 307. A Dixid Fly (Dixa, sp.). After Kellogg... 2. 2.00. e oc oes nec 130 308. A Dolichopodid Fly (Psilopodinus sipho). After Lugger.......++++++ 130 309. A Pipunculid Fly (Pipunculus fuscus). After Lugger.......+++++e+es 130 310. A Dung Fly (Sepsis punctum). From Graham-Smith.........+-++.+ 130 311. A Bombyliid Fly (Exoprosopa, sp.). After Kellogg. ..........+eeeees 130 312. A Spider-eating Fly (Opsebius plerodontinus). After Lugger......+++- 130 ILLUSTRATIONS _ XX1 FIGURE PAGE 313. A slender bodied Robber or Asilid Fly (Eurhabdus zephyreus). From iN Fobtel (4 0 Paro ae fo De ae eS ae oo Ce eC PC mery Sirs byt pea 132 314. A Robber or Asilid Fly (Promachus vertebratus). After Washburn. .... 132 315. A Bat-fly (Nycteribia, sp.). Bur. Ent., after Packard................ 132 316. An Ephydrid Fly (Ochtheria humilis). After Williston............... 132 317. The Morelos Orange Fruit-fly (Rrepeta tudens). Bur: Ent... ... 2.0... 132 318. The Corn Syrphid (Mesograpia polita). Bur. Ent.................... 132 319. The Horse Bot-fly (Gastrophilus C71) BUT EM tacers see oe oie erie 132 320. The Sheep Bot-fly (Gisirus ovis). Bur. Ent... ...........0222-0e0000- 132 Zone ihe came, with wings spread. Bur Ent: <...0 203.002... = os seis ce 132 322. A Tsetse Fly (Glossina morsitans), before feeding. After Austen...... 134 323. A Tsetse Fly (Glossina palpalis), in the act of feeding. From Austen, eeniteve) PX OVEN OF NbG Gee Sie cee Sas Cae SO oO e Ore Raraccic clos ais ain 134 324. A Tsetse Fly (Glossina morsitans), after feeding. From Austen....... 134 325. A Tsetse Fly (Glossina longipennis), in resting position. From Austen. 134 326. A Tsetse Fly (Glossina morsitans). After Hindle.................... 134 327. A Horse-fly or Gad-fly (Tabanus kingi). From Austen............... 134 328. Another Horse-fly (Tabanus lineola). After Lugger................ 134 329. A Black-fly (Simulium venustum). After Washburn................. 134 330. A Turkey-gnat (Simulium meridionale). Bur. Ent.........0......... 134 331. A Tachinid Fly (Cholomyia inaequipes) parasitic on weevil erik in Nori ands SouthyAmenca- bur Ente eee eeenie ee ane at ete eee ae 134 332. Another Tachinid Fly (Myiophasia aenea) parasitic on weevil grubs ineNOLensand SoutheAmercas BUT EMt ea. celts ieee oe ecieee ace 134 333. A Tachinid Fly (Ennyomma globosa) parasitic on the grubs of the Boll Wreevila (hosters 72.70) as UL SE tae ane ertens oe se ee eee ee res 134 334. Pupa case of the preceding protruding from the skin of a dead Boll Wee- vill feanaloy, , [bboy Gules ame SASS adeeb OnE Aen OEanen Raaootos oeraae 134 335. A male malarial Mosquito (Anopheles maculipennis); note the feathery antennae; the males do not bite. From Hindle..................... 134 336. One of our largest Mosquitoes (Psorophora ciliata), and one of the Sstrongestabiterss | roms) ab 4c Mithee are sees meee eee heretic 134 337. The male yellow-fever Mosquito (Aédes calopus). From Howard...... 134 338. The female yellow-fever Mosquito. From Howard.................. 134 339. The Congo Floor-maggot (adult shown in fig. 273). From Graham- SIMIC ae eee eater eo ee SU eR ee inlet nrok owucoe a taatits hetake 134 340. The Screw-worm (adult shown in fig. 276). From Graham-Smith..... 134 341. Maggot of a Horse-fly (adult shown in fig. 327). From Hindle, after HRSWANS SE uae G NOD Gute ae os aM hor yo, he ROM San ART 134 342. Maggot of the Horn-fly (adult shown in fig. Spfs)) 5 oes INES = oo noea ee 134 343. Maggot of the Blow-fly (adult shown in fig. 263). From Graham- Srimldnacs 5 aguh co Hae fo CER Oo eRe A aac cane a Deen ee ase ee = A 134 344. The Morelos Orange Fruit-worm (adult shown in fig. 317). Bur. Ent.. 134 345. Maggot of the Corn Syrphid (fig. 318). Bur. Ent................... 134 340. Maggot of a Tsetse Fly (fig. 323). From Hindle, after Roubaud...... 134 347. The same, assuming a different form. From Hindle, after Roubaud... 134 348. ihevsames) Hrometindlesatter Roubaude-:.02 secess see neese eee es 134 XXil ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURE PAGE 249; Lhe’same. From Hindle; ‘aiter:Roubaud: 3.0.52... 12 oe nel eee 134 350. Maggot of the common House-fly (fig. 262). From Howard.......... 134 3565. Lhe same, lower surface. From Howard: 2.2 37 c-. -)cesiew «1 «mols 134 352. Young larva of a Mosquito (fig. 335). From Hindle................. 134 Z09. Pupa of the Corn syzphid (fig. 318). Bur) Ent... -: ..-2 2c. cae 134 354. Pupa of the Morelos Orange Fruit-fly (fig. 317). Bur. Ent............ 134 anc, Pupa-ot the Horn-fly (fig-275)., Bur Ents. -.2 con. eer ee eee 134 256, -Pupa of a Tsetse Fly (figs. 322-320). Prom Ansten.. 92.2 = eee 134 357. The Dog Flea (Ctenocephalus canis), adult. Bur. Ent................ 136 358. The Sticktight Flea (Echidnophaga gallinacea). Bur. Ent............ 136 359. Lhe Human Flea (Pulex arritans). Bur. Ent...............:2.-.02-6 130 360. The Jigger Flea or Chigoe (Tuga penetrans); a female before entering the skin? (Buri Bnte shes ews sae oes cic ces Poon = ere ee 136 201. the same; tertile female. Bur Pntax. 3.2 gece ea eee 136 362. The same on the third day after its entrance under the skin of the human bodys: Bure Eat. 205.) 0cscscee. Silks: veya: eee ene eee 136 363. The same, a fully grown female: ‘Bur. Ent. <2 27. 200.25. ee eee 136 264, The egg of the Dog-Flea (fig. 357). Bur. Ent..<. .< 1.22.2 eee 136 365. The maggot or larva of the European Rat Flea (Ceratophyllus fasciatus). Burs, MEDC i evilts.c save auecrokeacs eiere ee aree, Siar ar we hes eee) tae ae 136 366. Larva of the Jigger Flea (figs. 360-363). Bur: Ent... 22.22. s ener 136 207. Pupa of the Dog Flea (fig. 357): “Bur, Ents... - 5... ccc. a eee 136 368. The European Pine Saw-fly (Diprion simile), male; this has recently been introduced into New England, and the individual figured came frome Connecticut. erom Aldrich: Salleses sree eee eee 136 200. Lhe same, female.” Krom Aldrich, 'S. 1277.20. 9... 0 49> eee eee 136 370. A gall-forming Saw-fly (Euura macgillivrayi) from Colorado. From Aldrich. Sila. 2 .2siscirs safes? oode aren eects teres ents = cyers ferns Keeeeen 142 371. A Horn-tail (Tremex columba). Bur. Ent............+..+0+.:+2--=- 142 372. The wood-boring grub of the preceding, with a young grub of the large ichneumon Megarhyssa feeding on it. Bur. Ent..................--. 142 373. A bullet gnawed by a wood-boring grub. Bur. Ent., after C. R. Dodge. 142 374. A Wheat Saw-fly (Cephus pygmeus). Bur. Ent..............-..-- 142 375. The Sweet Potato Saw-fly (Schizocerus ebenus). Bur. Ent.........--- 142 370. Young of the preceding, Bur, Mint. 0-7). 2

... 4-...+ see deers 222 669. A Madrepore, or Stony Coral (Porites clavaria). From A. Agassiz.... 226 ILLUSTRATIONS XXXIil FIGURE 670. 671. 672. 673. 674. 675. 676. 677. 678. 679. 680. 681. 682. 683. 684. 685. 686. 687. 688. 689. 690. 691. 692. 693. 694. 695. 696. 697. 6098. A Millepore (Millepora alcicornis). From A, Agassiz..............++ A Solitary Coral (Flabellum alabastrum) dredged by the ‘‘ Challenger”? off the Azores in 6,000 feet of water. From the “Challenger” Reports. . . Another Solitary Coral (Flabellum angulare) dredged by the “Chal- lenger” off Nova Scotia in 7,500 feet of water. From the “‘Challenger”’ HREDOLUS eyes oes sites aoe fsa carter ee tee Oe Se Ser ee ee The same, seen from above. From the ‘‘Challenger” Reports........ A branching Coral (Madrepora prolifera). From A. Agassiz.......... A Hydroid (Hippurella annulata). From A. Agassiz, after Fewkes... . An Antipatharian (Antipathes columnaris). From A. Agassiz, after IRQuitall counce bee tarty Sa ti. at eat. aan rans a 8% cd oete e NernaDS A small portion of another kind of Antipatharian (A ntipathes spiralis). ETOMeAGe AN CAssizZ-~caiter ountalesey.. i. see fete seo eee aoe eee A common Sea Fan (Rhipidogorgia flabellum). From A. Agassiz...... A deep sea Sea-anemone (Actinauge nodosa). From A. Agassiz, after igen lS Si Ae epee Graney eee yer ena ee me eae er LER A Pennatulid, or Sea Pen (Anthoptilum thomsoni). From A. Agassiz, AIRE HCO IER fot lec se tah sR Ret evans epee toe Another Sea Pen (Pennatula aculeata). From A. Agassiz, after Koren ATV ATE SET, Pra Santas sutsiaS St cvcrtts Bese) Pav eee MM whip ee ah Three Sea-anemones from deep water (Sagartia abyssicola) seated on the tube of an annelid or jointed worm, the head of which may be seen pro- trading. Prom A- Agassiz, after Vermllzei5550 6: 2s seo. kak meee A curious Jelly-fish (Velella mutica). From A. Agassiz.............. An Umbellularian (Umbellularia giintheri). From A. INE. on on cooe The cluster of polyps of a much larger Umbellularian from the Kara Sea. Ome NOTGERSETOIASS 8,5, 15 see lames eee eae ME Mah BME wa ee A Hydroid (Cladocarpus paradisea). From A. Agassiz A Hydroid (Streptocaulus pulcher). From A. Agassiz................ A curious deep water Sponge (Chondrocladia virgata). From Wyville PIOMSOM cha 4 Lays eee ae Sick. chee yn ee a eee A tn A Beaker Sponge from the Arctic Ocean off the mouth of the Kolyma HIVEL OLD EL aaa rome N OLdenskj olde een eee Another of the same. From Nordenskjéld......................... A very queer Sponge (Amphilectus challengeri) dredged by the “Chal- lenger” in 4,950 feet of water. From the “Challenger” Reports...... A Siphonophore (A galma elegans). From A. Agassiz, after Fewkes.. . . A deep water Sponge (Hyalonema) from off Japan. From A. Agassiz.. Another Glass Sponge (Kegadella phoenix) from deep water in the West lmglias, 1B reoyam, ANS ANGE Vio coc cobb oe bunbco obese daeasdunaunsasaua. A giant Venus’ Flower Basket Sponge from deep water in the West Indies (Hu plectella gous). From A. Agassiz... 22... 20.6006 bees ceccccccccen A curious Sponge (Cladorhiza concrescens) from deep water in the West lin ics TODIFAR EAR ASSIZ A aan Mn, cene (ee ee kt Ls eo eie AT Aap A deep water Sponge (Holtenia pourtalesii) from the Straits of Florida. From A. Agassiz ee XXX1V ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURE 699. A Rhabdosphere from the surface of the ocean. From the “Challenger” IREPOLES ssi. dics, Suetaad if Bi SiceeecRh rors cs Oe ore stole) oe nS Gee Ce eee eee 7oo. Another of the same. From the “Challenger” Reports.............. zor. A Pyrocyst (Pyrocystis noctiluca). From the “Challenger” Reports.. . 702, che same. From the (Challenger? Reports... .. +--+ 5.) acer vog., Lhe same» Brom the Challenger? Reports. ..6.025- = 1-24 ee 7o4. A: Noctiluca, (From7A: Agassiz: 9.2 0\s; 5. .ctiee oes a> ones oe eee 705. A Foraminiferan (Biloculina ringens). From A. Agassiz, after Goés.. . 706. Another view of the same. From A. Agassiz, after Goés............. 707. A Coccosphere. From A. Agassiz, after the “Challenger” Reports... . 708. A bundle of the little plants (Trichodesmium erythraeum) from which the Red Sea gets its name; they are common in many places, but not always red: 2 EromvAs Agassiz. occ dspace mainte ones 26.3 eee Oe 709. A Foraminiferan (Biloculina tenera). From A. Agassiz, after Schultze. 710. A Foraminiferan (A strorhiza limicola). From A. Agassiz, after Brady. 711. A Foraminiferan (Orbiculina adunca). From A. Agassiz, after Brady.. 712. The same, young. From A. Agassiz, after Brady..................- 713. A Foraminiferan (Thaurammina papillata). From A. Agassiz, after Brady... igbe ened sess 6 thea Sb cnet o sags vin ae tees tra ee 714. A Foraminiferan (Cornuspira foliacea). From A. Agassiz, after Goés. . 715. A Foraminiferan (A mmodiscus tenuis). From A. Agassiz, after Brady. 716. A Foraminiferan (Textularia sagittula). From A. Agassiz, after Goés.. 717. A Foraminiferan (Cyclammina cancellata). From A. Agassiz, after 718. The same in section. From A. Agassiz, after Brady................ 719-727. A Trypanosome (Trypanosoma congolense); a culture from the in- testine of a tsetse fly (Glossina palpalis, fig. 323). From Hindle, after 728-736. Another kind of Trypanosome (Trypanosoma pecaudi); a culture from a tsetse fly (Glossina palpalis, fig. 323). From Hindle, after 737-740. A flagellate Infusorian (Herpetomonas calliphorae) found in the blow-fly (Calliphora vomitoria, fig. 263); the preflagellate form, and a transition stage (top) toward the formation of a full grown Herpetomo- nas). From :Graham-Smith.. 5:5 .cccc.ces- ecee ste eene PAGE 250 250 Animals of Land and Sea BIOLOGY AND HUMAN WELFARE To be able to live in comfort a man must have a special knowledge of some trade or profession; but to be able to live at all he must have at least some acquaintance with the sub- ject of biology. As commonly defined, biology is the study of life; but as contemplated by the average individual it is the study of disease and death and how to avoid them, and also how to inflict them on other hostile living things with the minimum of danger to himself. Everyone is familiar with the trapping and poisoning of rats and mice, with the spraying of orchards to keep down the insect pests; with the boiling and sealing of fruits and vegetables to sterilize them; with the chlorinating of water to eliminate dangerous “‘germs’’; and with the taking of quinine to cure malaria. All housewives recognize the clothes moths and the “buffalo bugs,” and no lady is so tender hearted as to let one of these escape if she can catch it. Every country boy avoids the poison ivy and the poison sumach, and the nests of hornets, wasps and bees. All of this is but applied biology, mostly learned by the wasteful method of repeated experience, with behind it a long history of loss by destruction of crops and other property, and of discomfort, sickness and death. Together with a greater or lesser number of biological facts the average person acquires a corresponding number of bi- ological myths, more or less fantastic and usually harmless, but sometimes proving hurtful. I D) ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA Let us illustrate the biological contacts of our daily lives with a concrete example. A small boy rises early and goes fishing. He puts on his cotton shirt and a pair of old woollen trousers, which he fastens with a leather belt. From the pantry he gets an egg, and while this is boiling he toasts some bread. Opening the door he finds that the milk has come and, knowing that he will be far away before his mother awakes, he helps himself rather liberally. The buttered toast, the egg and milk consumed, he hurries to the garden for some worms, but only finds a few. Thinking of the milk and of his mother, he decides to supplement the worms with grasshoppers and, taking his bamboo pole and a silk line, a present from a last year’s summer boarder, he starts off for the river. Under the eaves on the left side of the house is a “yellow- jackets’”’ nest, with the inhabitants already passing in and out; on the right is mother’s window; so he goes past the hen house through the back fence, avoiding a post verdant with poison ivy, and continues toward the river, passing a “sround yellow-jackets’” nest under a large stone and a bumble-bees’ nest in the sod further on. Near the river he turns off the path and catches sufficient grasshoppers to sup- plement his supply of worms. A garter snake which he sees he mashes with a rock. Reaching the river bank he trots barefooted across the mud to a convenient log on which he sits. Horse-stingers or snake-doctors are all about, and a very large one reminds him that it would sew his mouth up if given the opportunity. Impaling a worm upon his hook he spits upon it after the most approved method and casts it in the water. Some minutes later the float moves slightly, then is still. Many minutes pass; he pulls the line up and finds the bait is gone. A painted turtle was the thief, but he does not know it. An- other precious worm is now impaled. Upon this he spits from the other side of his mouth according to the plan successfully adopted by his cousin Jimmy yesterday. This time there are no results at all; the worm grows water-logged and mushy, BIOLOGY AND HUMAN WELFARE 3 and he decides to try his luck elsewhere, a decision hastened by the numerous mosquitoes in this shaded spot. Passing a sandy shore he sees a large bass move hastily away. Here he at once seats himself on a stone and throws his line out near some lily pads. It is sunny and hot and still and the horse flies and the sand flies pester him; but if he can only catch that bass his mother will perhaps forgive him for the milk. Three of those small fish called pumpkin seeds and two small yellow perch eventually reward his efforts, but in catching them he loses both his hooks. He now remembers that he had promised dad to spend the day searching for caterpillars on the tomato plants, for which the reward was to have been two cents a dozen; he also re- members other things, for instance, dinner time is twelve and it is now three. Slowly he rises, to see the bass dart off again, and gingerly collects his fish now encompassed with flies and a few hornets. His welcome home is quite as he expected. His mother did not mind the milk, but when he left the house he wedged the screen door open in order to get out his precious pole, and the house is full of flies. However, mother soon forgives him, lunch revives him, and the tomato patch yields many worms before dad returns. Now what are the biological contacts of Willie’s day a-fish- ing? Willie’s woollen trousers were made from the wool of sheep from England. For centuries the ancestors of these sheep had been carefully selected in order to produce a strain that would yield the longest and most abundant wool instead of long hair mixed with short wool, the natural covering of sheep. The breeding of animals is by no means a simple matter. In the old days long continued more or less haphazard efforts were attended eventually by more or less success. Recently, however, the subject has been studied in great detail and certain laws determined by the application of which desired results may be obtained, or at least approximated, with a ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA PLATE I I. A BRaAzILIAN TaPIiR. Il. A Wart Hoe. For detailed explanations of the figures see p. ix. BIOLOGY AND HUMAN WELFARE 5 minimum waste of time and money. These laws of heredity were worked out not on sheep but on other animals, especially flies, of which many generations each with very numerous individuals may be obtained within a single year. But the broader generalizations discovered through the breeding of flies in the laboratory were found to be applicable to sheep on the farm, and by approaching the subject in this way enor- mous amounts of money were saved and, besides, many things were learned which could never have been learned from sheep. Similarly the generalizations were applied to the breeding of chickens to produce varieties which would yield the greatest number of eggs; to cattle to produce the largest yield of milk and butter; to wheat to produce the best flour; to silkworms to produce the best silk; and to other animals and plants to increase their value to us. Living in large herds sheep and cattle are especially subject to parasites and diseases which must be carefully studied in order that their ravages may be prevented. Of these diseases we shall mention only one, at the same time cautioning the reader to remember that there are many others, some much less well known. The “liver rot” of sheep is widely spread and often disastrous, killing, it is said, not less than a million sheep a year in the United Kingdom alone. This disease is the evidence of the activity of a flat-worm or fluke, only one of several hundred kinds of these creatures, which lives in the sheep’s liver. Each fluke produces half a million or more eggs which pass out of the sheep and fall to the ground. The rain washes them into pools and ponds where they hatch, giving forth an active conical creature, exceedingly small, which swims about until it finds a snail into which it bores its way. Failing the discovery of a snail it perishes; but unfortunately nature provides plenty of snails for it. Within the snail it grows into a sort of sac which in its interior develops another type of young; within these last more young develop, some like the parent, and some like minute pollywogs which emerge from the snail and swim away, climb up a grass blade, lose their 6 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA tails, and become inert. If a sheep eats grass with these things clinging to it they come to life again, plod their way to the sheep’s liver, and soon develop into full grown liver flukes. The cost of wool production, and hence the price of woollen cloth, has been greatly lessened by the discovery of the in- tricate life history of this pernicious organism as a result of which means have been devised for controlling it. The small holes in Willie’s trousers just above the knee were made by buffalo bugs which concentrated on some spots of soup that Willie spilled one day. The lines nearby were made by clothes moths. Before this summer these trousers had been Willie’s best, but they had been put away with insufficient care. The thread used in sewing the trousers was made from Sea Island cotton, a special type of cotton de- veloped by many years of the most careful selection and grown with every precaution to guard it against insect and fungus pests each one of which had to be studied separately and exhaustively and traced in all its stages to determine how best it could be attacked. The buttons were attached with linen thread made from flax from Flanders, grown with the same care as the cotton and prepared on lines determined by long years of investigation as the best. Willie’s shirt was made from upland cotton, quite different from Sea Island, just as carefully selected, and just as care- fully protected from the pests, but with different ends in view. Its sole remaining button, of white and shining pearl, came from a river mussel in Iowa. When young these river mussels attach themselves to fish and this is how these clumsy creatures mainly get about. This simple biological observation is of the greatest importance to the mussel industry. Willie doubtless did not appreciate the dangers of the mud he walked across with his bare feet, for on mud lurk the young of the dreaded hookworms which bore through the skin and, entering the body, live within it and more or less seriously incapacitate the victim. In the copper-head which lay be- neath the log on which he sat, unknown to him, Willie would BIOLOGY AND HUMAN WELFARE 7 have seen an enemy at once. Yet ten to one its bite would have been less serious to him than an attack of hookworms. So, too, some of the mosquitoes in the shaded spot where first he fished were more dangerous than the copper-head, for within them were malarial organisms. Had these bitten him he might have had a most distressing and protracted illness. The numerous flies which came into the house when Willie left the screen door open were mostly bred as maggots in the stable, and in a dead rat in the field. The common house-flies are well known now to be the carriers and distributors of various diseases, especially of typhoid fever. See them on those blueberry pies; who can tell what germs their little feet are leaving as they walk across the crust? A fly bites Willie’s father on the ankle and folding a newspaper, he proceeds to smash the flies upon the kitchen table. He does not realize that it was not one of these that bit him, but a very different sort of the same size and color but with a strong beak, a so-called stable-fly. He kills a small fly on the window pane. Though small now it would soon grow into a big one, in his opinion. He is wrong again; after flies trans- form from maggots into flies they grow no more. The little fly was probably of quite a different sort of which the maggots sometimes live in man producing great discomfort. But, again, it may have been one of those little flies that live when young as maggots in our rugs and carpets feeding on the clothes moths. His wrath against the flies abated by the slaughter of some dozens of them, he picks up a small package of meat delivered by the butcher’s boy some time ago. With a startled buzzing several flies escape and make for the window. The meat shows several clusters of light yellow eggs and some small maggots wandering about. These are the eggs and young of flies from some dead creature. One of the flies was caught and crushed between the paper and the meat as he picked the package up, a bluish one with three black lines between the wings. It came from a sore on one of the neighbor’s cows ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA PLATE II Ill. A SoLENODON, AND A COLLARED PECCARY. IV. A GREAT ANTEATER. For detailed explanations of the figures see p. ix. BIOLOGY AND HUMAN WELFARE 9 which will not heal. It is a screw-worm fly and its young will eat dead or living flesh, and it sometimes attacks man. The worms on the tomato plants are the caterpillars of a large and handsome moth, the five-spotted sphinx, which in the spring at dusk visits the rhododendrons on the lawn. The large black butterflies which come to the nasturtium flowers lived as caterpillars on the parsley patch, while the caterpillars of the several small white ones in the garden are busy boring into cabbages. But why continue further this catalogue of facts? Is it not clear that every living thing that Willie sees, and even more too small for him to notice, have each and all some bearing on his welfare? All plants are either useful, in providing food for man and his domestic animals, in furnishing fibers for cloth and cordage, in producing timber, or in yielding drugs or dyes; ornamental plants and shade trees have their value, too; or they are harmful in destroying useful plants, both through direct attack like rusts and blights, and by the prevention of their growth like weeds, or in occupying space in which more useful plants might grow; some of course, are very poisonous. Likewise all animals are either of benefit or detriment to man. The latter eat the useful plants or live as parasites upon or within man and the domestic animals or spread disease. The former serve as food or destroy the detrimental. plants or creatures or serve to pollinate many flowers incapable of fertilization otherwise. Many insects, strange as it may seem, are detrimental when young, useful as adults, or vice versa, or sometimes useful, sometimes detrimental. Let us briefly note the things that are not so, the myths, in Willie’s concept of biology. Though all the evidence seems against the statement, human saliva does not add to the attractiveness of worms whether expelled from the right or left side of the mouth, or from the center. All snakes are carnivorous, eating other vertebrates or insects. They are highly beneficial to the farmer, and Willie saved the lives of many harmful creatures by squashing that garter snake. The Io ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA menace to health represented by the rattlers, moccasins and copper-heads of course largely offsets their value, but all the non-poisonous snakes are distinctly beneficial. There is a widely spread belief that horses harbor in their insides snakes which are occasionally expelled. These squirm- ing things are not snakes, but large unjointed worms called nematodes very commonly infesting horses as well as pigs and other animals, and man. Dragon-flies eat only other insects which they catch upon the wing. They do not sting horses, nor do they doctor snakes. When young they live submerged in streams and ponds eating insects as they do when fully grown. Sometimes the larvae of the large ones eat small fish, but not unless severely pressed by hunger. In this country they are termed the “devil’s darning needles”? and with this name comes the idea that they can sew. Some bees that Willie thought he saw on a dead animal were not bees at all, but bee-flies, the young of which sometimes live in carcasses. In ancient times it was supposed that bees were formed spontaneously from dead animals, these flies being mistaken for the honey bees. No living things of any sort ever appear spontaneously. All living things are the child- ren of similar living things. All flies for instance, arise from maggots which come out of eggs laid by parent flies. All cases of malaria or of typhoid arise through transfer of the “germs” from other cases. This rule has no exceptions. In the country you will sometimes hear that bumble-bees eat honey bees, and even wasps. The bumble-bees do no such thing; but there is a large asilid fly, very stout and colored like a bumble-bee, which has this habit. These few examples serve to illustrate some common mis- conceptions, out of hundreds. A few of these are curious and harmful. In parts of Europe it is thought that to be healthy one must harbor cooties. The logic is that when one dies his cooties leave him; therefore cooties must be a sign of health. Now cooties carry typhus fever and are the cause of other sicknesses as well. But when a man believes his health depends on having cooties, what can a doctor do? ANIMAL NAMES A COMMON cause of misconceptions in zoélogy is the use in ordinary speech of a single name for several different sorts of living things. We have in English numerous popular and familiar terms covering familiar creatures. Wherever Englishmen have gone they have carried these terms with them and, as best they could, applied them to the birds and beasts of other lands. Other races have done the same, and not infrequently their names have been adopted into English with very varied mean- ings. Robins, wrens, blackbirds and orioles are found almost everywhere that Englishmen have settled. But the English robin is a very different bird from what we call a robin, while the robin of the West Indies is a sparrow. Some of our wrens are closely related to the English wrens, but the wren of the West Indies is a sort of thrush; there the true wrens are known as God-birds. The English blackbird is, except in color, very like our robin, with much the same habits and a very similar song. Our blackbirds are of a very different type, related to our orloles which have nothing in common, except the black and yellow color, with the old world orioles. In the same way our New England hedge-hog is not at all a hedge-hog, but a porcupine, a rodent instead of an in- sectivore; our buffaloes are not buffaloes at all, but bison; our elk are very different from the European elk, which are like our moose. Again, our wild-cats are not true wild-cats, which have long tails and look much like domestic cats, but lynxes. Trout is a very favorite name for fish. Our brook trout is a charr and not a trout. Our sea-trout in the south is a kind mn ET 12 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA PLATE III VI. A TASMANIAN DEVIL, AND AN V. A Two-Toep SLOTH, AND A AUSTRALIAN SPINY ANTEATER. . “4 ‘ > a os Harry ARMADILLO. VII. Hawaran GEESE. For detailed explanations of the figures see p. ix. ANIMAL NAMES 13 of weak-fish and in no way related to the trouts. The trout of the West Indian streams is a sort of mullet. Silver-fish, jelly-fish, star-fish, etc., have of course nothing to do with fishes. Jigger is the name applied to a kind of flea which burrows in the skin. But with us the term is usually bestowed upon a mite which further south is called béte-rouge or red-bug, though it is not a bug at all. The name bee-fly is given to quite a lot of flies of different groups which look like bees or live with bees. Deer-flies are of two main types, deer-flies proper, related to the horse-flies, and the larger black-flies. May-flies, stone-flies, alder-flies, dragon-flies, lace-winged flies, green-flies, saw-flies, scorpion-flies, butterflies, and many other kinds of “flies” have nothing at all to do with the true flies. In the same way June bugs and potato-bugs are not bugs but beetles; black-beetles are cockroaches, not beetles, and so it goes. Any creature that even most distantly suggests radiation from a central point, even by merely running equally well in any direction, is in danger of being called a spider or a scorpion. The “Spider ground” near Provincetown is famous for the abundance on it of sea-spiders, sometimes called sea-scorpions, which in this case are basket-stars, related to the brittle-stars and other star-fishes. Elsewhere the terms sea-spider and sea- scorpion are used for pycnogonids, for crinoids, and for various other creatures. ' The term worm is applied to anything long and soft and legless or with inconspicuous legs, quite regardless of its z06- logical affinities. Thus blind-worms are a sort of legless lizard; tongue-worms are a kind of enormous mite, related to the spiders; cabbage-worms are the young of butterflies; apple- worms are the young of moths; chestnut-worms and acorn- worms are the young of beetles; vinegar-worms, hookworms, pin-worms, Guinea-worms, etc., are nematodes; tape-worms are a sort of flat-worm. Most sea-worms are jointed worms I4 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA or annelids, related to the earth-worms, but strap-worms are nemerteans and ship-worms are molluscs with a pair of very minute shells modified for boring purposes. We have adopted the Spanish word mosquito for the in- sects called in England gnats, a term applied by us mostly to chironomids, fungus-gnats and other little flies, and sometimes to male mosquitoes, though never to the biting females. But in some places where mosquitoes have another designation our name for them is used for sand-flies. These few examples show the difficulties in the way of a proper understanding of zodlogy when explained in English terms, especially outside of England. Many efforts have been made to bring our common speech into accord with scientific knowledge. Such efforts have never been attended with very marked success and I believe are bound to fail for the reason that language is primarily the medium of exchange for ordinary thoughts and ideas relating to everyday existence. Groups of men engaged in restricted lines of work develop special words and phrases to convey an exact meaning to others engaged in the same line, but these never come into very widespread use. And so robin and oriole, bug, fly, fish, etc., will continue to be misapplied except by those few with a deep interest in nature as long as English lasts, and the student of zodlogy must continue to beware the pitfalls hidden in the colloquial names of animals and must search out the explanation of the numerous discrepancies in the standard works of reference. HUMAN FOODS LET us investigate more fully our contacts with the animals. These fall under three main headings. We use animals and animal products as food; animals use us as food; and we make use of animals to transport us and to provide power, to furnish us with leather, silk, bone, horn, ivory, shell, per- fumes, glue, dyes, medicines, and very many other things, which enter into our everyday existence. Fastidiousness is an attribute rapidly aquired by all peoples with increasing prosperity, and one of the first symptoms of an incipient attack is restriction in the number of different kinds of foods consumed. In the Mediterranean there are some small and very inferior fishes allied to the perch (Maena) which no one will eat if he can possibly get anything else. In Venice, if you wish to say something especially mean about any one you say “Mangia menole,”’ he eats these worthless fishes. In America we do differently; we contemptuously call the Frenchman Froggy, and our sailors call the English Lime- juicers; and then we take the sting off by serving both frogs’- legs and lime juice in all our best hotels. And while we are enjoying a dish of “mountain oysters,” served at a very high price, at the same time we pity the poor European peasant who eats snails. In America we have always had abundant food; we have been able to pick and choose our diet, and many items have been eliminated from our list of edibles which are important economic factors elsewhere. Thus of the mammals, cattle, sheep and hogs are the only ones we use on a large scale, disregarding dogs, cats, rats, and many others which are freely eaten elsewhere, cats and rats when cooked being frequently 15 16 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA PLATE IV VIII. Tue Bean GOOSE AND THE MARIBOU STORK. IX. THE DOUBLE YELLOW-HEAD. X. THE Harpy EAGLe AND THE CALI- For detailed explanations of the FORNIAN CONDOR. figures see p. 1x. HUMAN FOODS 7 called rabbits. Of birds we use chickens, ducks and geese, with sometimes a few others, like turkeys, guinea-fowl and pigeons, as special delicacies. Of our very numerous sorts of fishes only about half a dozen are widely used, with many others eaten locally; but in any one town one rarely sees more than a half a dozen kinds in the fish markets. Lobsters and the larger crabs, shrimps, oysters, clams and scallops round out our bill of fare so far as it concerns the animals. But let us see what other people eat. While man regards without prejudice so to speak, almost all sea creatures and is perfectly willing to eat any of them if only they are not offensive to his palate, it is quite different with regard to animal life on land. For instance sentiment against snakes is so widespread that they are not usually used as food if this can be avoided, though they are eaten in some places, even in this country, and they are good to eat as I can testify. Monkeys also are not generally eaten except in parts of South America; but besides the protecting sentiment against their use as food their flesh is tough and strong, and there is little temptation to eat monkey twice. Nearly all the larger mammals are eaten in their native countries, the exceptions being those that are so very tough, like many cats, or so very strong, as old he-goats, as to make this impracticable. Hoofed animals always are preferred to others. They usually are large and hence provide a large amount of meat which rarely has a disagreeable flavor. They live in open country or in open woods, never climb the trees, seldom burrow, and are usually more or less sociable in habit. They can therefore be secured in adequate quantities with a minimum of difficulty and of danger, and besides many of them are easily domesticated. Burrowing animals when large enough are always popular as food, since they can be trapped or dug from their burrows with little expenditure of labor. But all the larger burrowing animals are rather scarce and solitary. In the South American forests where hoofed animals are 18 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA few in kinds and scarce or, like the peccaries, rather dangerous, more different sorts of mammals are regularly consumed as food than elsewhere. The tapirs, peccaries and deer are favor- ites; but the anteaters, sloths, monkeys, pumas, porcupines and armadillos, as well as other kinds are also eaten. In our own country, besides the various hoofed animals, bears, opossums, wild hares and rabbits, muskrats, porcupines, and even skunks are eaten, the last three much less now than formerly. In some places in the East the large fruit bats are esteemed as food; but most people find their flesh too strong. Chicken and rice three times a day for six whole weeks once formed my bill of fare. Then we caught a whale and I ac- quired forty pounds of good fresh meat. Under the circum- stances, perhaps, my judgment might be questioned; but I still look back on that whale meat as the finest meat I ever tasted, resembling the best of beef, but much more tender. I had no ice, and this was in the tropics, so in a day or two the flavor of whale oil was noticeable. This was corrected by some curry powder; but in a few days more it got to be too strong for any remedy, and I gave it to the natives, it being then in just the state in which they most prefer it. All the whales are excellent as food, but the irregular supply prevents the widespread use of whale meat, though we some- times find it in our restaurants, and one can often buy it canned. The larger whales are much like tender beef, but the porpoises and dolphins which eat fish have a more or less marked fishy flavor. In Greenland whale skin takes the place of chewing- gum. Seals are used as food in many places, and their tongues especially are prized, as are the tongues of whales. Sea-cows or manatees and dugongs are highly prized as food wherever they are found, but they are fast becoming rare. The largest of them, which lived in the Commander Islands, for some time has been extinct. Nearly all kinds of birds are eaten if large enough to make it worth one’s while or obtainable in sufficient quantities, HUMAN FOODS 19 unless their flesh is nauseating, as in the vultures, or too bitter to be swallowed, as in the spruce grouse. I tried to eat some of the latter once in the White Mountains, but I could not do it. Hawks are considered a great delicacy in some places, herons and parrots in others; but generally speaking it is the galli- naceous birds like the turkeys, partridges, quail, grouse and pheasants and their allies, and the numerous ducks and geese that are universally preferred. These are nearly all large, or at least fairly large, nearly all have excellent flesh, and most of them are sociable, so that abundant food is furnished by them with a minimum of effort. Many are readily tamed. Where they are common pigeons and doves are much sought after. Where larger birds are scarce, as in the south of Europe, the little birds, like thrushes, warblers, and other passerines, are captured in large quantities with bird-lime, nets and _ snares. I have even seen the English sparrow in our markets, and in days past our fathers used to feast on robin pies. The great black crab-hawk on St. Vincent is a favorite among the na- tives, as is the local chicken-hawk. In the West Indies also the yellow-crowned night heron which feeds on crabs is much esteemed and very good. Parrots are excellent when young, reminding one of squabs; when old, however, they are very tough. Young macaws are very fine; but the mastication of a fully grown macaw requires the jaws almost of a Hercules, combined with the patience of a Job. If other edible birds can be obtained, and this can usually be done, it is just as well to let the parrot tribe alone as parrots are hard to kill and wounded parrots bite most savagely. We generally avoid birds reeking with fish oil, like the large gulls, pelicans and fish eating ducks, though we sometimes eat the last when specially prepared. The very flavor we dislike so much recommends these bird to other races. Some of the larger lizards, especially the iguanas, are de- 20 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA licious, and in high favor wherever they occur. That curious lizard known as the ‘‘chuck-walla”’ which is slightly less in size than the Gila monster and feeds on buds and flowers is much prized by our western Indians as food. The flesh of the common crocodile in Africa is eaten by the natives there; but Sir Samuel Baker says “nothing can be more disgusting than crocodile flesh. I have eaten almost everything, but although I have tasted crocodile, I could never succeed in swallowing it. The combined flavor of bad fish, rotten flesh, and musk is the carte de diner offered to the epicure.” Of the alligator the tail is considered a delicacy by the southern negroes, while one of the native crocodiles of Siam regularly appears as food in the markets of that country. Turtles and tortoises of all kinds and sizes are in general much prized, with the exception of the carnivorous sea turtles. We ourselves are immensely fond of the vegetarian sea turtles, served especially as soup, and of what we believe to be, and often is, the salt marsh tortoise or terrapin, paying for both a very fancy price. Our common snapper is very widely used as food, and of late years has decreased in numbers, especially near the larger cities. In the Balkans the little mud turtles of the ponds are considered a great delicacy, and small pond and river turtles are eaten elsewhere. The eggs of the large sea turtles and of the iguanas are much sought after. Frogs in many places are esteemed a delicacy. Usually only the hind legs are eaten, but in some places they are boiled whole and consumed like buns. In Dominica one can sometimes see a native going home at night with a few “moun- tain chickens” — large frogs— attached securely to his per- son by passing the long hind legs beneath his belt. The giant salamander is eaten in the East, but so far as I know these creatures are not eaten elsewhere. The number of food fishes is enormous, mclacine nearly every sort of fish large enough to eat. A few fishes are pois- onous, some are likely to cause illness, and some are shunned because they look poisonous, or merely because they are not HUMAN FOODS 2 so sleek and handsome as we think a fish ought to be. Asa rule we have a prejudice against eating sharks or skates, cusk or sea-cats, sculpins and fishing-frogs, all of which, however, are relished by less squeamish peoples. The sea-pike or sea-gar is eaten in most places, but shunned in others because its bones are green and not white as fish bones ought to be. In the West Indies there is a persistent tale about a rat which was once seen to eat these green bones and shortly after observed to die in agony. But in one village in these islands you may hear this distressing tale about the rat and in a neighboring community you may find this fish, green bones and all, particularly esteemed. In the far north, especially in Greenland, the natives eat the flesh of the great arctic shark which they catch through holes in the ice near which it lurks in order to waylay the seals as they come up to breathe. If eaten as the flesh of other fish, and of other sharks, is eaten the arctic shark is very poisonous, both to men and dogs, causing what is known as shark intoxication. But after cooking in several changes of water the flesh of this shark is quite as harmless as that of any other fish. As a rule when we eat a fish we leave the head, along with the back bone, for our friend the cat, the exceptions to this rule being mostly of an involuntary nature. Of a large fish we sometimes eat the tongue or cheeks, but our interest in the front end of a fish never goes much further. In many places, as in parts of the West Indies, the eyes are considered the most delicious part and are always eaten first, as I have often noticed; and in parts of northeastern Asia boiled salmon eyes are a favorite dish, looking like large blueberries. Sheeps’ eyes are also very popular in Asia Minor. Our fish we always cook, but in many places fish are eaten raw with or without a special kind of sauce. I have eaten raw fish in Washington as well as in Japan, and it is aston- ishing how good it is. But do not try to eat raw fish unless you know what kinds are safe to eat, for in some are found 22 XI. ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA PLATE V THE AFRICAN BLACK VULTURE, AND THE SOUTH AMERICAN CONDOR. XII. A Cassowary, AND A KING VULTURE. For detailed explanations of the figures see pp. ix, x. HUMAN FOODS 23 the dormant younger stages of certain parasites which, when the fish are eaten by the birds or seals, come to life again and grow to their full size in them. In the Baltic region and in parts of Asia infection of man in this manner is not rare. Let us now consider the humbler animals without backbones that serve as human food. Any one familiar with the animals along our shores must have noticed the strange creatures called sea-urchins or sea-eggs, the star-fishes, and the sea-cucumbers. Wherever sea-urchins are common they are greatly prized as food; they are eaten by the Indians in the northwest and on the Alaskan coast, in southern Patagonia, in the West Indies, especially at Barbados, and in the Mediterranean region. They are taken at the spawning season, and it is the eggs that are eaten. These are very good, either cooked in various ways or raw. When I was in the West Indies I fre- quently depended upon these things for lunch, bringing in a dozen or two from the reef and then breaking them open and scooping out the contents. In the Bering Sea the sailors on the “‘Albatross’”’ became very fond of them and would look for them in the dredge as it came up. The local value of the sea-eggs is sometimes quite consider- able. For instance when I was in Barbados the fine for taking them from the water out of season was five pounds sterling. At the time I had a valet to whom I paid one shilling weekly. Had he misbehaved himself in this respect it would have taken nearly two years’ salary to pay his fine. The commercial value of the sea-cucumbers in the Pacific, where they pass under the name of trepang or béche-de-mer, runs into the millions annually, but elsewhere they are not used to any great extent. They are eaten at Naples and at other places in the Mediterranean region, but only by the lowest classes. In America they are not regularly eaten any- where, though in the West Indies they are gathered to some extent for the eastern markets. A few of the large star-fishes are sometimes eaten, but none are sufficiently abundant to be of great importance; besides, they are difficult to open, have 24 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA little in them, and that little is sometimes very bitter. That curious fish-like creature called in our text-books Amphioxus and supposed to be a primitive vertebrate is an important article of food in at least one town in China. Swimming lazily in the summer sea the flabby jelly-fish are curious objects, and the more strikingly colored ones, red, purple or sky blue, are often very handsome. As we see them from the deck of a steamer or a yacht they may excite our interest, though never in the same way that it is aroused by the sound of the dinner-bell. Yet jelly-fishes are in various places an important article of food. In Japan a large kind is abundant in the Inland Sea which is caught in quantities and preserved with a mixture of alum and salt, or between the steamed leaves of a kind of oak. It is later soaked in water and flavored with condiments, and when so prepared con- stitutes an agreeable food. Other large jelly-fishes are eaten in the Philippines and elsewhere; and in order that we of European descent may not regard this as altogether an out- landish procedure I may mention that in Europe also jelly- fishes were eaten in the past, as far north as Cornwall in England. Among the sea-worms there is one which is very important as an article of food in many places in Polynesia, called the palolo. When fully grown it averages about 16 inches in length and is sharply divided into a thick anterior part, about one quarter of its length, and a slender posterior part. In the slender hinder part the eggs are formed; and on or near the day of the last quarter of the moon in October and Novem- ber the worm wriggles backward in its burrow in the coral rock or similar situation and breaks off the long hinder end, which rises to the surface and swims about, finally bursting and scattering the eggs. These swarming worm ends are considered a great delicacy by the natives and are gathered in great quantities. In Samoa and in Fiji this swarming is well known and has been carefully studied. The same or a similar worm occurs in the same way at other places, in the Gilbert and HUMAN FOODS 25 Banks Islands, in the New Hebrides, on the east coast of New Ireland, and at Amboina. Throughout the Pacific Islands the spring season is recognized as the period of ripeness of the palolo, and wherever it occurs the season and even the months are named for it. In southern Florida the swarming of a closely related worm occurs within three days of the day of the last quarter of the moon between June 29 and July 28, though the worm is not here used for food. I suppose that none of the fishermen on our more northern coasts to whom the sea-squirt or sea-peach is a very familiar object ever thought of eating one. In the Mediterranean countries, however, they are regularly found in the markets. The outside covering, which is tough and indigestible, resem- bling wood fibers, and indeed of practically the same chemical composition, is removed, and the inside, which resembles the yolk of an egg but has a somewhat bitter taste, is eaten either raw or sprinkled with flour and fried in oil. Other sea-squirts are eaten on the west coast of South America and in other regions; but there is little likelihood of this habit spreading. The common sea-anemones or animal flowers which are often such striking objects in the tide pools on the shores look no more appetizing than their relatives the jelly-fishes, though they are of somewhat firmer texture. Some of them, like many jelly-fishes, sting most painfully. Yet all of them, after cooking, are good to eat—or perhaps I should say can be eaten. In the Mediterranean countries where they are much used by the poorer classes they are generally fried in oil. Condiments are usually classed as food, so it may not be out of place here to remark that at Barbados in the West Indies the millepore, a sort of branching coral-like thing related to the sea-anemones, is known as the “sea-ginger’’ because of the strong pepper-like sensation resulting from its application to the tongue. While the number of different molluscs that we eat is very limited, oysters, clams, scallops and a few others being the only ones commonly consumed, other peoples are not so par- 20 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA PLATE VI XIII. European FLAMINGOS, AND AMERICAN EGRETS. For detailed explanations of the figures see p. x. HUMAN FOODS 27 ticular. Almost all bivalves, snails or other types, marine, fresh water or terrestrial, which are large enough or abundant enough to make it worth while to gather them are used. Gen- erally speaking univalves are considered inferior to bivalves, though the abalone or Haliotis is a great favorite in the east and in California, and in the West Indies the large conch or lambi is very highly prized. Squids and octopus of various kinds are in much demand in many parts of the world, and the first named form the basis for an important industry both in the Mediterranean region and in the east, especially in the Sea of Japan. As I know from personal experience both are very good when properly prepared. Lobsters, and crabs and shrimps of various sorts and some- times cray-fish make up the list of crustaceans which we con- sider edible. Elsewhere many more kinds are eaten than with us, among the stranger forms the large barnacles and the eggs of the horse-shoe crabs. When you go through a fish market in the eastern countries or in the Mediterranean region do not assume that everything exposed for sale is edible. The intention of the proprietor is to sell as much as he can; you are supposed to know the food value of your purchase. One often sees beautiful brittle- stars, queer star-fish, “tiger tusks’? and other things displayed more by way of ornament than for any other purpose. The prejudice accompanying increasing civilization operates to diminish the consumption of insects as food. We dislike to eat bugs, no matter how nutritious they may be. Other races, however, view the subject in quite a different light. The seventeen year locust, or periodical cicada, in the years of its abundance used to form an important article of food for the Indians, who usually ate them boiled. They were caught in great quantities as they emerged from the ground to trans- form into the winged state. The white settlers, imbued with the English prejudice against eating insects, never adopted this habit, though they found them very useful for boiling into soap. The ancient Greeks thought so well of the song of the cicada In na i ts | > a 28 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA that these creatures were the favorites of every Greek poet from Homer and Hesiod to Anacreon and Theocritus. To be said to excel a cicada was the highest praise a singer could receive. The music of Plato’s eloquence was said to be only comparable to the voice of a cicada. Cicadas meant quite as much to the Greeks as scarabs did to the ancient Egyptians, and golden cicadas were worn by the Greek women in their hair. But in spite of the veneration the Greeks had for the cicadas they fully appreciated their economic value and used them extensively as food, preferring them, like our Indians, just as they emerged from the ground. Cicadas of various sorts were eaten by the Romans, and they are still used for food in many places. From the eastern foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains to the Cas- cades and from Oregon to Mexico there lives a rather large moth inconspicuously colored called the Pandora moth, the cater- pillar of which lives on pine trees sometimes, at least in the north, in such numbers as completely to devour all the leaves. This is one of the longest lived of all the moths, as it lives for two years and not for a single year or less like nearly all the other moths and butterflies. The caterpillars are only about one-third grown when the winter overtakes them. They all climb to the top of the tree and there spin a silken nest, much as the tent caterpillar does in the spring, from which they emerge when the warm weather again sets in. By the next autumn they are fully grown, over two inches long and very fat. The Indians in the regions where they are abundant, for example the Pai-Utes in the Klamath region of Oregon, prize them very highly, collecting great quantities and drying them for winter use. These dried caterpillar mummies are shrivelled, dark red-brown, and oily, and have an interesting rather than an appetizing odor. But it is seldom that moths or butterflies are regularly used. for food not because of any distaste for them, but because the caterpillars and pupae unless small or covered with hairs or bristles are rarely obtainable in sufficient quantities to make HUMAN FOODS 29 it worth while to gather them, and because the winged adults are so fuzzy as to fill the mouth with dust. Caterpillars of several kinds are eaten by the African bushmen, by the Aus- tralian natives, and by the Chinese. The caterpillar of the goat-moth used to be a favorite with the Romans. The Chi- nese and the Indian raisers of the Tussar silk moth eat the chrysalids after the silk has been unwound. The ‘“‘manna”’ of the ancients appears to be a term applied to several different foods of insect origin. The grub of a cer- tain weevil which lives on acacia roots when about to trans- form into the adult climbs the stem and, finding a suitable position, surrounds itself with a thick froth which hardens into a white and snowy mass within which is the pupa. ‘These white masses, with the pupae in them, still found in the mar- kets of the near East, are probably the ‘‘manna”’ to which most frequent reference is made. But another sort, the se- cretion of a scale insect growing on the tamerisk in the same regions, is also there still used as food. In many of the salt and alkaline ponds and lakes in our western country, from Washington to Mexico, there lives abundantly a small aquatic fly known as the Ephydra. When the maggot, which lives in submerged or very wet decaying vegetation, is fully grown — about half an inch in length — its outer skin hardens and turns brown, forming a protection for the included pupa, which shows through as a yellowish kernal like a small yellowish grain of rice. Mono Lake, Cali- fornia, is subject to violent winds in the latter part of the summer, and the disturbance of the lake loosens many of the puparia so that they float to the surface and wash ashore where they drift up in heaps, and hundreds of bushels may be collected. The Indians come from all around to gather them for food. They are dried in the sun, and the shell rubbed off by hand, leaving the small yellow rice-like pupae. These are oily, very nutritious, and not unpleasant to the taste. Until not so very long ago this fly formed an important article of food for the Indians in the regions where it is abundant. ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA PLATE VII is ad XV. A MATAMATA TURTLE, AND A GILA MONSTER. For detailed explanations of the figures see p. x. HUMAN FOODS at There is another and very different fly called Athertx which is still more important as an article of food in the west. This fly, the maggot of which lives in streams, lays its eggs on the branches of the bushes and trees overhanging the water. Many will lay their eggs in the same place, hanging to each other in such numbers as to resemble a small compact swarm of bees. On the Pitt river in California the Indians are ac- customed to place a line of logs across the stream, then go up-stream and shake the flies off the willow bushes. The masses of flies and eggs float down and lodge against the logs in great quantities so that as many as a hundred bushels may be gathered in a single day. The mixed masses of dead and living flies and eggs are then steamed and cooked in holes dug in the ground and heated with stones and thus prepared for winter use. In tropical America there is a large black beetle, the palm weevil, the grub of which, called the “gru-gru worm,’’ lives in palm tree tops. Wherever they are found gru-gru worms are a great delicacy. They are commonly eaten raw, especially by native children who regard them much as our children do candy; or they may be fried in their own fat and eaten on yams or potatoes. Consumed in either fashion they are very good, though somewhat tough. Beetle larvae, particularly the young of weevils and of rhinoceros beetles and cockchafers, relatives of our common June bugs, are frequently used as food in different parts of the world. During the war pickled beetle grubs even formed the piéce de resistance at a luncheon given in Washington. In parts of Europe, especially in Ger- many, adult beetles corresponding to our June bugs are often caught and eaten by children, and in Africa the very large beetles are roasted over a fire and greedily consumed. The larger grasshoppers, called locusts, are a very favorite food. The Arabs eat them when they are abundant, ground up in hand mills as a substitute for flour, and also boiled or stewed in butter. The Hottentots feast upon them and make a coffee colored soup out of their eggs. In Calcutta 32 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA dried locusts form a part in the preparation of most delicious curries. White ants are eaten generally by Hottentots and other Africans, raw, boiled, or parched in gentle heat, when they remind you of sweet almond paste. They are also eaten in the warm parts of America, and in India, especially their queens. ‘True ants of various sorts are eaten. On the Ama- zons the satiba ant is captured by the basketful for food at the time of swarming and eaten raw. In India the spinning ants are used in curries and also crushed and used as smelling salts. In Africa there is a small bird called the honey indicator which will guide you to the nearest bee-hive. The natives, after they have feasted on the contents of the hive, consuming a mixture of honey, grubs and pupae, always take care to leave enough so that the little guide shall be rewarded. In India the grubs and pupae, as well as the honey, of the large jungle bee are eaten. In parts of Polynesia large centipedes are eaten, after being cooked over a fire while held firmly by both ends. Large earth-worms on a smooth surface make a sort of tinkling sound with the rings of stout hooks which encircle their bodies and by means of which they crawl. While they are nowhere used as food, except, perhaps, occasionally in India, the singing girls of Java sometimes swallow them in the hope that the tinkling sound will in some way be im- parted to their voices. Perhaps it would be just as well not to pursue this topic further. Enough has been said to show that man as an ani- mal is omnivorous. All nutritive non-poisonous plant and animal substances, together with many non-nutritive and others more or less poisonous, are consumed by him. As a human being, distinguished from the animals by the use of fire, his diet has become greatly modified in accordance with his habit of applying a high degree of heat to almost everything he eats. MAN AS FOOD FOR ANIMALS — Ir is not likely that man ever formed an appreciable part of the food of any of the predaceous vertebrates. ‘Tigers, jaguars and lions, and particularly wolves, when pressed by hunger will kill and eat men; but even in prehistoric times the danger from them probably was never very serious, and it is now al- most a thing of the past. Each of these still capture an oc- casional victim, most frequently the wolves in winter, while the little mongoose sometimes nibbles off the ears of infants left sleeping by their mothers in the fields. Portions of the human body are occasionally bitten off by sharks, which are not nearly such terrible creatures as they look, though a few species and a few individuals of other species may be dangerous, as was shown off the New Jersey coast a few years ago. Large caymans, gavials and crocodiles pick up a few victims each year, but they are not regularly man eaters. The small can- nibal fishes of the South American rivers are much more to be dreaded then these large reptiles, while in the sea the bar- racoudas are at least as dangerous as the sharks. But probably more men are killed by poisonous snakes in self defense each year than are killed for food by all the other vertebrates com- bined. While the relatively large size of man renders him immune from the attacks of all but a few predaceous creatures, that very feature serves especially to recommend him to all such animals as are able to adapt themselves to live upon or in him. Four groups of insects include species which habitually and sometimes exclusively feed on man, the flies, fleas, bugs and lice, while other types as tree-hoppers, occasionally bite, and some ferocious ants will feed on human flesh as readily as on any other kind. 33 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA PLATE VIII XVI. A Funcus Gnat, A Rosser FLy, AND TWO KINDS OF MOTHS. For detailed explanations of the figures see p. X. MAN AS FOOD FOR ANIMALS 35 Let us first take up the flies, the most numerous, the most dangerous, and the most cruel of all our animal enemies. The screw-worm fly, a rather pretty creature common in tropical America — abundant in some places — and occurring as far north as Canada, lives normally in carcasses, but fre- quently it lays its eggs in sores or cuts or in natural body cavities and the maggots radiate from these in all directions. In man the nose, ears and eyes are most affected. All the larger animals in regions where this fly is common are very liable to infection in scratches or other wounds. This fly is of a most persistent nature and sometimes commits suicide in an effort to reach suitable food for its young. When I was collecting birds in the West Indies I wrapped the skins in sheets of cotton wool. This is sufficient to keep out blow- flies; but the female screw-worm flies will bore their way into the cotton, finally becoming hopelessly entangled and dying almost on the flesh they tried so hard to reach. There is a closely allied fly with similar habits in southern Asia, and another, less closely related, in Europe which is especially troublesome in Russia; both of these are said to attack only living animals. Many of the flesh flies occasionally breed in wounds or in natural cavities of the body, and these become a terrible curse to wounded soldiers in times of war when their numbers are vastly increased through breeding in unburied corpses. Those large, dark, hairy, rather slow and clumsy flies which commonly get into houses, and especially into cellars, and the smaller shiny green or coppery flies com- monly seen sunning themselves on garbage cans are among the most pernicious of these. The common large gray dark striped flesh-fly also has this habit. The larvae of the human bot-fly, which occurs from Mexico to Argentina and is a true bot-fly, live in swellings which they produce beneath the skin. Their method of entering the host is most remarkable. The female bot-fly captures a large female mosquito or other fly and glues her eggs to the under side of its abdomen. When the fly with the eggs attached 36 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA alights upon the human skin the maggots emerge and enter the puncture made by the mosquito. Various animals are also parasitized by this fly. The warble-flies of cattle and the horse bot-flies sometimes live as maggots beneath the skin of man, and the larvae of the sheep bot-fly occasionally infest man, particularly the cavities of the head. In tropical Africa there are several flies related to the blow-flies of which the maggots live under the skin of man as well as under the skin of various animals. The best known of these is the tumbu fly. There is one very interesting fly the maggots of which suck blood after the manner of the leeches. This is the adult of the Congo floor maggot, which occurs throughout tropical Africa. The maggots live in the dust and cracks of the floors of houses and come out at night to suck the blood of the sleeping inhabitants. It is not known to trouble any of the animals, but similar maggots live in the burrows of hairless mammals. Similar flies live in the nests of birds and suck blood from the nestlings. The maggots of a considerable number of different flies if swallowed will live in the intestinal tract of man, but in the case of most of the species which have been recorded, infesta- tion is rare and purely accidental. House-fly maggots occasion- ally enter the body and cause trouble. Much more common is infestation by the lesser house-fly and the cheese-skipper, which may lead to serious consequences. Bot-fly larvae and the larvae of the large gray flesh-fly have been found in man. Strange as it may seem the worst of all man’s enemies in the insect world are the mosquitoes, the commonest and most widely distributed of the blood-sucking flies. More than 500 species of these have been described, and many of these species under suitable conditions occur in absolutely incredible abun- dance. In the little island of Carriacou there is a musical swamp which at the proper season you can hear humming for a long distance. A road passes through this swamp, and as you approach you soon learn why it hums. On entering you MAN AS FOOD FOR ANIMALS 37 are enveloped in a mist of mosquitoes which trails out several feet behind, and your horse is almost hidden by them. I have never seen the equal of this swamp, at least as it was twenty years ago, but I have not the slightest doubt that there are many other places just as bad or even worse, in the north as well as in the tropics. In Alaska they sometimes drive the bears and deer into the water. Though most are dull, some tropical mosquitoes are very brilliant in their coloring, burnished copper or iridescent green. In the mountains of St. Vincent I well remember a brilliant green mosquito that used to hunt me when I was hunting parrots. The different species of mosquitoes vary greatly in their habits. When young most of them eat dead organic matter, some eat small microscopic creatures, while a few have pre- daceous habits. As adults a few feed entirely on the juice of plants while most of them will do so if they cannot get blood. I have seen numbers of them feeding on bananas. Male mos- quitoes never bite. The females of some species will attack a large variety of vertebrates, including even turtles, while others are more particular, a few specializing to a large extent on man. One of our commonest mosquitoes in the eastern United States never bites man, but feeds on the blood of frogs and perhaps also on some other cold blooded animals. As is now well and generally known the mosquitoes in the warmer regions are especially to be dreaded as carriers of disease; malaria, yellow fever, dengue and filariasis are spread by them, the causative organisms being injected while they bite. Mosquitoes also serve as disseminators of the human bot-fly. In Africa the tsetse flies are easily first among the insect pests as the carriers of sleeping sickness and other trypano- some diseases. These flies resemble the bird flies in having no feeding larval stage, but feeding only as adults, as well as in being wholly parasitic on the vertebrates. As in many, if not most, bird flies the young are born full grown and ready ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA PLATE IX 33 Prd Se Pea . Sie i ? XVII. A West INDIAN FIRE-FLY, AND FOUR KINDS OF MOTHS. For detailed explanations of the figures see p. x. MAN AS FOOD FOR ANIMALS 39 for pupation. Since they feed only when adult, both sexes bite. All biting insects that transmit disease do so only on the second and succeeding bites. From the pupae they emerge free of disease, which they acquire from first biting an infected animal. In many cases the disease germs pass through a special phase of their life history within the insects’ bodies, and until this phase has been completed they are incapable of growing within a vertebrate, within which they pass through a different phase. In a few cases the transmission is mechani- cal, the disease organism being carried to the victim without undergoing any change within the insects’ bodies, somewhat as a house-fly carries typhoid. Only in a tick (related to the spiders and not a true insect) are disease germs known to be transmitted from the mother to the young so that infection may result from the first bite. It was in the late spring in the mountains of New Hamp- shire that I first became acquainted with the black-flies. These vicious things are small, but they have very painful bites and they occur sometimes in enormous numbers near the moun- tain streams in which their larvae live. Their adult life is short, however, and they do not bite at night. There are numerous species widely scattered over the world. They are not known to be carriers of disease, but their attacks are some- times fatal. Only the females bite. The tabanids, the well known horse-flies, deer-flies and their allies are for the most part much larger than the other biting flies and some are very large, an inch or so in length. Their bites are rather sharp and painful, but not poisonous, or at least not much so. About 2,500 different kinds have been described. The young live in water or in damp ground and are predaceous. Only the females bite, and they bite only in the daytime, and only in the open, never under roofs. The males of some species are quite different from the females, and remind one of syrphids in their habits. Some species are important as mechanical distributors of various animal 40 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA diseases, especially of anthrax, which sometimes attacks man. In Africa deer-flies act as carriers of a parasitic worm known as a loa which creeps under the human skin. When tabanids occur in great numbers, as many species often do, their attacks are sometimes fatal. Often mistaken for the house-fly because of its similar size and color is the stable-fly which, like its various close rela- tives, has blood-sucking habits. This fly, unlike most other blood-sucking flies, prefers to bite through clothing, stockings particularly. Its maggots mostly feed in decomposing vege- table material, but sometimes breed in manure like house-flies. Both sexes bite, and they are able to transmit anthrax and probably other diseases. The psychodid or phlebotomous flies, in the orient commonly called sand-flies, of many species, are small, but have a very painful bite. The larvae live in cracks and chinks feeding on vegetable material. Usually only the females bite. Some spe- cies disseminate phlebotomous or three days’ fever, and they have been accused of carrying oriental sore and other illnesses. The biting midges, the smallest of the biting flies, are known to everyone as sand-flies, punkies or no-see-ums. Though very small, their bite is quite annoying, and they often occur in numbers. The young live in water or in moist places, some in sea water. Only the females bite, mostly toward evening or in the early morning, and especially when the air is very still. On the island of Mayreau a few miles from St. Vincent I once constructed a duck blind on the shore of a shallow pond. But it was not possible to use this blind at all on ac- count of the numbers of these flies which in the early morning and towards evening quite drove one frantic. Some of these flies have been supposed to carry a form of oriental sore. The three species of lice or “cooties’’ which live exclusively on man each on a different part of the body have been much discussed in recent years. Typhus, trench fever and relapsing fever are carried by these insects, which possibly carry also other illnesses. MAN AS FOOD FOR ANIMALS 4I There are several hundred kinds of fleas, most of which are parasitic on the mammals, some on birds, one only on a snake. A number of these, especially the human, dog, cat, rat and squirrel fleas, are important as pests of man. Plague, as well as other diseases of more or less importance, is transmitted by certain of these insects. Of the so-called bugs, the bed-bugs are best known as para- sites of man. There are two widely distributed species, one in the tropics, the other in cooler regions, and a third in West Africa which specialize on man, though they will suck the blood of various mammals and even birds if no human being is available. Other closely related forms live on birds, bats, etc. Strangely enough these insects have not been definitely proved to transmit disease. The assassin or reduviid bugs include a number of large and active insects ferocious in disposition and_ bloodthirsty in habits which frequently, or even habitually, prey upon man. These are especially numerous in the American tropics, ex- tending northward into the southwestern and southern states, with a few in the northern states and some in Africa and Asia. Those which most frequently prey upon man are usually known as “big bed-bugs.” While these “big bed-bugs” have an almost painless bite, the bite of nearly all the rest, which attack man only casually or accidentally, is very poisonous and painful. In the northeastern states the best known is the so- called ‘‘kissing-bug,” a purplish black sort which bites very severely; but one or two others are much larger, the “wheel- bug,” for instance, reaching an inch and a half in length. In South America some of these bugs transmit a serious disease caused by trypanosomes. There are quite a number of true bugs in other groups which will sometimes attack man. Nearly all the larger water bugs will bite severely if handled carelessly. Passing now to the spiders and their allies, we find very many human parasites among the ticks and mites. All of the ticks are parasitic, mostly on mammals, but also on birds and reptiles, and many, both of the bird and mammal ticks, attack 42 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA man. Some have very painful bites, and some have been shown to transmit dangerous diseases. The mites are mostly small and many are almost invisible. Some are vegetarian or feed on decaying matter, while others are predaceous and many are parasitic. The most familiar are the “red-bugs,” “jiggers” or “‘bétes-rouges,”’ so very annoying in the spring time in the south, and the itch-mites of various sorts. There are very many kinds of mites which attack man, even among plant- feeding types. One mite has been proved to transmit disease. Related to the mites but much larger are the curious tongue- worms which live in the lungs and air passages of carnivorous mammals and reptiles and when young are internal parasites. Both the adults and larvae are sometimes found in man; these usually are of a species from the dog, though they sometimes come from snakes. Of the leeches the most important as human parasites are the land-leeches which are a miserable pest in many warm moist countries, and those small leeches which, taken in with water in the act of drinking, attach themselves to the lining of the mouth and nasal passages. There are three types of so-called ““worms” which habitually feed upon the human body or live on the results of its activities. The flat-worms or flukes are most remarkable creatures with a life history so complicated it is a marvel that any at all survive. In many cases the chances are more than a million to one against any single egg developing to maturity; and yet there are plenty of these creatures. The life history of one of the flukes has already been given in the introduction; in some the life history is still more complicated, involving three entirely different hosts. All of the flukes infesting man, over twenty kinds of blood flukes, liver flukes, lung flukes and intestinal flukes, are parasitic in fresh water snails at some stage of their development. Everyone has heard of tapeworms. These are related to the flukes. They have a somewhat less complicated life his- tory, though most of them live in one host in the earlier, and es MAN AS FOOD FOR ANIMALS 43 in another in the later stages. There are numerous different kinds in man some of which are very long, up to 30 feet or more, and others very small, less than an inch. Most of them are also known as parasites in cattle, hogs, dogs, rats, mice or other animals, with the early stages in insects, crus- taceans, fish, frogs, snakes, mammals, etc. Various larval tapeworms have been found in man of which the adults have not been determined. One larval tapeworm found in man is the young of a dog tapeworm; this would promptly develop in any dog if it ate the flesh of an infected man. Ordinarily dogs become infected from eating carcasses or offal from sheep and cattle which also harbor the larval worms. Of the extremely numerous sorts of round-worms 59 species are listed as having been found in man, some of which are dangerous parasites, some relatively harmless, and some merely casual or accidental. The most important of the round-worms as human parasites and a terrible menace to health and efficiency in most of the warmer regions are two sorts of hookworms which live in the intestines and enter the body by boring through the skin, usually of the feet and legs. The eel-worm, which sometimes measures as much as 18 inches in length, is also a serious pest in many places, especially in children, as is the trichina which is contracted from eating uncooked or insufficiently cooked pork. The various filarial worms, some causing elephantiasis, so common in many tropical lands, belong to this group. They are transmitted by certain mosquitoes, tabanids, etc. The largest of the round-worms are the Guinea-worms which, from 3 to 5 feet in length, live beneath the skin. When young they live in those little water fleas called copepods. A few sorts of the so-called spiny-headed worms sometimes occur in the intestinal tract of man. Within the human intestines live quite a large number of different protozoans — amoebas, flagellates and ciliates — which under a microscope recall the similar forms occurring in hay infusions. ‘These animals are able to form about themselves 44 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA PLATE X XVIII. THREE kinpDs oF MorTHS. For detailed explanations of the figures see p. x. MAN AS FOOD FOR ANIMALS 45 a firm membrane or shell within which they can resist dessi- cation, often for long periods. Some of these internal proto- zoans, especially one species of amoeba, are injurious to health, and not infrequently their activities are attended with fatal results. Of the others some appear to be more or less injurious, and some quite harmless. Many of them live also in various animals. Very interesting creatures are the so-called trypanosomes, and often very deadly, especially in Africa where they are the cause of that terrible scourge known as the sleeping sickness. These pass through part of their life history in the tsetse flies. Some of the American kinds are incubated by certain assassin bugs. Of the protozoans which reproduce themselves by the for- mation of numerous spores, the so-called sporozoans, by far the most important are the several kinds of malarial organisms which live on the red corpuscles of the blood and are injected by the bite of certain species of mosquitoes. There are, how- ever, various other sporozoan parasites in the human body which attack different tissues, some with often very serious consequences. Many of them are transmitted by lice, sand- flies, ticks, mites, etc. The numerous sorts of spirochaetes form a very interesting group of minute creatures. Some of these are free living, some commensals or mess mates with various molluscs, some harmless parasites of man and various animals, and some malignant parasites, the causative organisms of some of the most horrible of the diseases which infest man, as well as of many diseases of milder form and lesser importance. MAN’S PLACE IN THE WEB OF LIFE From this brief sketch of man as food for animals and of the animals as food for man we get a true idea of man’s real place in nature. Man as a race consumes all things that can serve as food for him, while all types of creatures that can do so feed upon his body, which in its relation to the lower an- imals may be compared to a saline pond crammed with food- stuffs. The contacts of the mammals, birds, etc., with the other groups of animals resembles in its general features that of man, though they are far more subject to attack, especially the smaller ones, by large predaceous creatures. But man in addition makes use of very many animals for purposes other than the direct increase of his food supply. The powerful bodies of the horse, ox, camel, elephant, water- buffalo, llama, yak, dog, etc., assist him in his labors. The milk of cows, goats, sows and other animals yields butter, cheese and other products. The woolly covering of sheep gives him warm clothing, and the hair of beavers and of rab- bits, felt. Fish yield glue, isinglass, and other things, and sea turtles tortoise-shell. The industry of bees gives him wax and honey. Various caterpillars of the larger moths are silk producers, and from other insects he gets dyes, varnishes and medicines. The list of animal products used by man, of which those given are but samples, is very long. To a large extent man lives in an artificial world of his own creation. All the enemies of his domestic animals and culti- vated plants are enemies of his just as truly as if they attacked his own body; their enemies are his friends; the enemies of the latter are again his enemies, and so on. The indirect re- lationships of man to animals are much more important than 46 MAN’S PLACE IN THE WEB OF LIFE 47 the direct relationships, but they are so exceedingly complex that they can only be mentioned here. There is one phase of the subject, however, that must be noticed. Man has often tried to assist nature for his own benefit with sometimes unforseen and more or less disastrous results. The mongoose was introduced into the West Indies to kill the rats, which were a serious problem in the cane fields. First a large gray mongoose was brought in which did not thrive, and later a small brown one which throve too well. The most noticeable result of this introduction of the mon- goose was not a diminution in the numbers of the rats, but a marked decrease in the numbers of the small doves and other ground nesting birds and of the lizards, coupled with a great increase in the numbers of obnoxious insects. For instance on St. Lucia the screw-worm flies soon became abun- dant and a terrible pest to live stock. Why? Because these flies, which like to sun themselves on rocks and fence rails, fall an easy prey to the numerous small lizards which frequent just such situations, and the mongoose feeds largely upon these little lizards. _ On the adjacent island of St. Vincent, fifteen miles away, two sorts of mole crickets promptly increased enormously. Mole crickets on St. Vincent are eaten by a large ground lizard which, noting the surface movements which they cause, runs to the spot and digs them up. The mongoose found the young of these ground lizards easy prey, resulting in the great increase in the mole crickets. But the increase in the mole crickets had been noticed by the local chicken hawk which previously had fed upon small lizards chiefly; and in 1903 I found these hawks to be the main consumers of the mole crickets. The history of the introduction of rabbits into Australia, of the gypsy moth and brown-tail into New England, and of hosts of other cases, show the delicacy of the animal balance in the world in which we live and the complexity of man’s contacts with it. 48 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA Fics. 1-7. The cave Salamander, a Liparid, and four reef fishes. For explanations of the figures see p. x1. MAN’S CHIEF COMPETITORS, THE INSECTS In the preceding pages frequent mention has been made of insects, those omnipresent little creatures that force them- selves on your attention everywhere. The insects number about three-quarters of all known kinds of animals, and on the land and in fresh water are the most important of the living creatures; for not only are there half a million known, and many more unknown, but each of these half million kinds exists in countless numbers. To explain the conditions under which we live it is first necessary to present a brief account of the food relationships and some of the activities of insects. We are accustomed to think of insects as feeding on vege- tation or on each other, but in reality their feeding range is far beyond this; and if we include substances which insects chew, whether for food or for some purpose still unknown to us, there are few things which are free from their attacks. In the first place, an enormous number live as larvae, and often also as adults, on green leaves, mostly by consuming them entire, but some by mining through the tissues. Such insects are nearly all the moths and butterflies, most grass- hoppers, crickets and their allies, most saw-flies, many beetles, many flies, and many millepeds. While some of these will eat a large variety of plants, most are more or less restricted in their diet, and very many will eat only a single kind. All plants, no matter how poisonous they may be to us, have their insect depredators. Some of these are not at all affected by the poison, like many that feed upon Euphorbias; others cleverly avoid the portions where the poison lies. The juices of plants sucked out through a tube from the leaves or stems or roots support aphids, scale insects, leaf- hoppers, cicadas, and many bugs. 49 50 Fics, 8-11. ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA The Lake Trout, the Brook Trout, and Two Flying-fishes. For explanations of the figures see p. Xl. MAN’S CHIEF COMPETITORS, THE INSECTS 51 The flowers of plants, especially the ovary with the de- veloping seeds, nourish the larvae of numerous beetles, flies and moths. Honey and pollen from flowers form the food of the young of most bees, some beetles, and a few flies and moths, and honey is eagerly consumed by the adults of many butter- flies and moths and flies as well as beetles, wasps and other insects which as young live on leaves, as borers, in decaying matter, or even as carnivores or parasites. As borers in the tender shoots or pith live the young of many flies, like the Hessian fly, various moths and beetles, and some saw-flies. As borers in the woody trunks of living trees live many beetles, horn-tails, some moths, and a few strange flies. The tender roots of plants are devoured by many beetles, like the June bugs and their allies, by many moths, and by certain flies, as crane-flies, as well as by the mole-crickets and some millepeds which burrow for them underneath the ground. Young cicadas and some aphids suck the juices from them. The inner bark of trees nourishes a host of types, especially beetles and flies. Fruits of most kinds are fed upon by the young of fruit-flies, at least in warm climates; moths and beetles bore into them to consume the contents of the seeds; various insects, including some adult moths, puncture them to secure the sugary juice; when dried they are devoured by various other moths and beetles. Seeds and grains of all sorts are attacked by the young of beetles and of moths, even when dried and stored, and also when ground up into meal. The stores of honey and pollen gathered by the bees form important food reserves of which full use is made by other insects at the bees’ expense. The social bees, like honey bees, mostly feed and tend their young and store the honey in wax cells. Their colonies, like those of the honey wasps and a few others, are continuous and their worst enemies are small moths that eat the waxen cells. Large moths, like the death’s head, will also sometimes sip the honey. The bumble-bees 52 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA are victimized mainly by the cuckoo-bees. ‘The solitary bees, the various burrowing types, the carpenters, carders, uphol- sterers, varnishers, etc., form lines of cells each of which is filled with food, provided with an egg, and sealed. The oil beetles and the burglar bees each have found a way of dispossessing the maker of these cells and of appropriating the food for their own young. The little stingless bees within the tropics, which have the sting so small and blunt as to be useless though their jaws are quite effectual, are social bees but with the other habits of the solitary kinds. The organic substance of a plant transformed into the or- ganic substance of an insect or related creature loses none of its food value; indeed in its new form it is even more desirable as food. Vast hordes of insects and their relatives of every major group subsist entirely or partially on other insects, which latter have been nourished by the plants. All spiders (aside from certain mites), scorpions and centi- pedes are throughout their lives carnivorous, catching and devouring insects of various sorts, and sometimes other crea- tures; for instance, giant spiders will kill and eat small birds, and giant centipedes catch lizards and are very fond of mice. Most of the gall wasps and many gall midges, some saw- flies, a few agromyzid and trypetid flies and fungus gnats, some mites and plant-lice, and some of the small moths by stinging or otherwise injuring a twig or leaf cause a pathological swell- ing called a gall which provides food for the grub inside. This grub may be accompanied by “guests” of other types, as well as serve as food for parasites. Great numbers of insects subsist upon decaying vegetable matter, especially when very moist, including many sorts of flies and beetles, spring-tails and crickets, and most millepeds. It is rather curious that nearly all blood-sucking flies except the horse-flies, some mosquitoes, and the tsetse, and all the fleas, when maggots, live on or in the ground, or sometimes in water, peacefully feeding on decaying vegetation. Thus every part of a green plant is eaten by a large variety MAN’S CHIEF COMPETITORS, THE INSECTS 53 of insects some of which, especially among the grasshoppers and their allies, will eat nearly all parts, fresh or dried, and animal substances plant, moist or dry or submerged in water also furnish food for hosts of other insects. The parasites that grow upon these plants, the mistletoes and beech-drops and all the other kinds, are also food for insects. The fungi thateattack all plants and_ those that feed on their decayed remains furnish subsistance for swarms of dif- ferent insects, especially the fun- gus gnats, many beetles and some termites, while other insects live on moulds and yeasts. Of insects proper the dragon-flies as well. The dead remains of a green Fics. 12-14. A Trigger-fish, a Ballyhoo, and a Moray. For explanations of the figures see p. xi. and allied types, the robber or asilid flies, all the water bugs, the assassin or reduviid bugs, the mantises, hornets, and tiger, carabid, and giant water beetles are at all times predaceous, and like the spiders, scorpions and centipedes, devour mainly insects. But the larger water bugs and beetles and the larvae 54 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA of the larger dragon flies, especially when other food is scarce, are often very destructive to young fish, and giant water bugs eat small frogs and tadpoles. Generally these predaceous in- Fics. 15-17. The Atka Mackerel, a Snipe-eel, and the Tundra Fish. For explanations of the figures see p. Xi. sects show slight discrimination in their choree oF food, catching al- most anything that comes their way; but most robber flies when fully grown are curious in having very special preferences. Those stout ones that look like bum- ble-bees eat only bees and_ wasps, while others catch only butterflies or moths. Slow disem- bowelment of the most revolting kind is practiced by the wasps. Most of these, making burrows in the ground, or bor- ing into wood, con- structing cells of mud, or utilizing chinks or burrows which they find, cram them some with spiders, some with large or small flies, or even bees, some with caterpillars, crickets, or other insects, which have been para- lyzed, but not killed, by stinging. An egg is placed in each MAN’S CHIEF COMPETITORS, THE INSECTS 55 burrow or cell and the larva lives a happy and secluded life slowly devouring the store of living but helpless creatures. The great majority of these wasps select a special and restricted type of food; some take only spiders, like the blue mud wasp of our barns and attics and the “tarantula hawk” of the southwest, others only certain kinds of flies, bees, grasshoppers, crickets, cockroaches, certain types of caterpillars, etc., as the case may be. The spiders know these murderers well, and some of the web-spinning kinds will drop instantly to the ground if they see or hear one. A large and powerful kind feeds upon harvest-flies or cicadas, and not infrequently one sees a cicada in full flight shrieking piteously with one of these great wasps close behind it. The delicate lace-winged flies, the commonest of which are green with golden eyes and smell abominably, are savage little brutes when young, feeding on other weaker and less active insects, mostly aphids. They look something like the larvae of the lady-bugs, which have the same habits, but have much longer and more slender jaws. The female lace-winged fly lays her eggs in groups, each small white egg raised on a long and slender stalk so that when they hatch the young can- not eat each other. The ant-lions, related to the lace-winged flies, have some- what similar though larger and much stouter, young, which mostly construct funnel-shaped traps in loose earth or sand into which small insects fall; some of them do not make traps but stroll about after the manner of young carabid beetles. The maggots of the syrphid flies, those little flies which hover in the air and dart from place to place, are mostly aphid feeders, and you often see them in the aphid colonies. Though soft and blind and legless they seem to prosper well in spite of competition by stronger and much more active creatures. Several of the small lycaenid butterflies as caterpillars live on scale insects or on ants, and various small moths live on the excretions of scale insects, lantern bugs, etc. Near Bos- ton I once gathered quantities of these predaceous caterpillars ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA Fics. 18-22. A Tritri, a Pipe-fish, a Loach, the Mississippi and an African fish. For explanations of the figures see p. xi. Cat, MAN’S CHIEF COMPETITORS, THE INSECTS 57 which were feeding on the woolly aphids of the alder and the carrion flower. Most of these were butterflies, but one was the young of a small pyralid moth. Many of the larger crickets, especially the mole-crickets, are more or less predaceous, and some enormous grasshoppers feed habitually on spiders, beetles and other insects, and even larger things like mice and lizards when they can get them. These giant grasshoppers are quite surprising things. The first I ever saw, in Venezuela, I shot, believing it as it sprang up to be a quail. The lazy walking-sticks are all plant feeders normally, but large ones sometimes will catch flies with their front legs, like mantises. The fire-flies are all predaceous, and many specialize on snails, the larvae of some of these living in water on aquatic snails and being the only phosphorescent creatures in fresh water. Some carabids also are snail eaters; and one very curious beetle, the European snail beetle, is peculiar in having the female wingless and larva-like, resembling the glow-worms, some of which are the females of certain fire-flies. Predaceous insects are mostly not particular in their food, and often feed on other insect eaters. Many are cannibals, normally, or when pressed for food. Crickets and many grass- hoppers and the caterpillars of some of the lycaenid butter- flies especially are potential cannibals. The predaceous habit passes naturally into parasitism, a condition in which the younger stages of the insects live within the bodies of their victims eating out their substance in such a way as to avoid killing the host until they them- selves are fully grown. While we may marvel at the way the solitary bees build cells, sometimes elaborately lined with leaves or felt or varnish, which they fill with food and furnish with an egg, then tightly seal, our astonishment is greater when we see how cleverly some insects have solved the prob- lem of entering these cells and using the bee’s stores, or the body of the growing bee, as food for their own young. For instance the oil-beetles, blister-beetles, etc., mostly 58 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA Fics. 23-27. A Sea Cat-fish, a Sea-gar, an Agonid, the Spoon-billed Cat, and a Gar-pike. For explanations of the figures see p. xii. MAN’S CHIEF COMPETITORS, THE INSECTS 59 hatch from the egg as active long legged larvae which, lurking in flowers, attach themselves to the hairs of solitary bees. When the cell is finished and the egg is laid on the store of honey the larva drops off and consumes the egg. It then casts its skin and a grub-like creature appears which devours the honey, changing its form and becoming more grub-like after each succeeding moult. After a false, followed by a true, pupal stage the adult beetle emerges. Carpenter bees and many other solitary bees are the victims of these beetles; some live in wasps’ nests eating the grubs, and one feeds on the eggs of the rocky mountain locust. The hive-beetles are parasites of a somewhat different type, and there are still other beetles para- sitic on the bees and wasps. But although very many beetles are during their whole lives predaceous, very few are parasitic. The habits of the cuckoo-bees have already been described; then there are the burglar-bees that lay their eggs in cells constructed by the solitary bees. The curious Stylops and its allies are parasites that live mostly in bees and wasps. Strange minute wingless flies called bee-lice infest the honey-bees, while mites are very common. Some bees are so obliging as to have a special cavity in which their mites exist. There are no parasites among the butterflies, and I know of only one among the moths. The larva of this species lives within the caterpillar of a large wood-boring species in Aus- tralia feeding on the fatty tissues. It is in the wasp tribe that we find the most curious and interesting of the insect parasites. Though some are vege- tarians, most of the small wasps called chalcid flies are para- sites in insect eggs, in the bodies of moth caterpillars, or in the grubs of gall wasps, mason bees, etc.; many are parasites on other parasites of these. All of the pelecinid and procto- trypid wasps are parasites in other insects or in insect eggs; some of the latter will swim down under water with their wings to lay their eggs in the eggs of water insects. Some of the gall wasps are parasitic in the young of flies or saw-flies, or of other parasitic wasps; others breed in galls made by other 60 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA NANA FINN A MANNY AY oA Fics. 28-35. The common Fishing-frog, and other fishes. For explanations of the figures see p. xil. MAN’S CHIEF COMPETITORS, THE INSECTS 61 insects. All the ichneumon wasps are parasitic, chiefly in caterpillars, but some in wood-boring grubs, in saw-flies, bees and spiders, in other parasites, in cockroach eggs, etc. It is said ichneumons never hum so that they are able to sneak up upon their prey unnoticed. Some curious wasps, with the females mostly wingless and looking like large ants, live as larvae in the nests of bumble-bees, parasol ants, etc., devouring their young, or in various large beetles, or in other insects. Of all the insect parasites the flies are the most nearly uni- versal in their tastes. The great majority of tachinid flies when young live in the caterpillars of moths and _ butterflies. I raised some scores of these this summer, quite without in- tention on my part. Others live in bees and wasps, in grass- hoppers and bugs, and even in other flies and earth-worms. The bee-flies proper, or bombyliid flies, are mostly parasites on solitary bees and bumble-bees, or in the latter case pos- sibly nest scavengers. But some live in other hosts, and and among our native kinds a few of the commonest live in the young of tiger beetles. Toads, frogs, turtles, young birds, and many mammals, especially the grass feeders, are subject to the attacks of numerous flies the larvae of which live in open sores or just beneath the skin. Other fly maggots live in the nostrils and air passages in the head, or in the alimentary tract. Repre- sentatives of all these sorts are also found in man and often cause great pain and even death. Other fly maggots live in greasy wool; and a whole group of strange flies which are curious in laying fully developed young or even pupae instead of eggs are blood suckers on birds and bats and some other mammals, like large and active lice. Some of these have wings, some have abortive wings, and some are wingless or shed their wings. The most curious one of all, called Ascodip- teron, which lives on bats, after shedding its wings bores under the skin of its host and transforms into a soft spherical lump with not the slightest resemblance to any insect. A minute wingless fly occurs on bees. 62 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA Fics. 36-40. A Sea-horse, and other fishes. For explanations of the figures see p. xi. MAN’S CHIEF COMPETITORS, THE INSECTS 63 Living more or less exclusively on the blood of vertebrates are the bed-bugs, lice, ticks, and some mites. Others sucking it whenever they get a chance are hosts of other insects, various large and vicious bugs, mosquitoes, horse-flies, stable-flies, tsetse flies, a few midges, black flies, deer flies, sand flies, fleas, jiggers, and red-bugs and other mites, many of which are terrible pests in certain places. The true jigger, which is a kind of flea, is an interesting creature — when it is observed in someone other than yourself. The female burrows into the skin and the hinder part of her body then swells into a large ball full of eggs. If this be not removed a serious sore will follow. Yet the young Jiggers, like all young fleas, live on decaying particles which they find in dust and dirt and are not parasitic. Dead animals provide food for quantities of flies and many beetles, by which in the warmer months they are soon con- sumed. The blue-bottle and other flesh and blow flies are common examples. The bee-fly, common on the golden-rod in the late summer, lives often in dead animals if very moist, and habitually on decaying substances of any kind, especially in water, being enabled to breathe by extending the hinder part of its body to the surface in the form of a long tube. adie adult bee-flies were mistaken for bees by the ancient Greeks, who observed them emerging in swarms from dead cattle; and this gave rise to the belief that bees were spontaneously gen- erated from dead animals. Another type of bee-fly lives as a scavenger in the nests of bees and wasps. The Esquimaux hold the blue-bottle sacred, since the bodies of their friends and relatives go to make up its substance, and each blue-bottle is supposed therefore to contain a corresponding portion of their souls. Certain carrion flies are sometimes parasitic. I lizards are fed on the larvae of these they will proceed to feed on their internal organs and soon kill them. Or if a lizard eats one of these flies full of eggs these eggs will sometimes hatch and the lizard will be eaten out from within. Men have sometimes been killed by carrion fly larvae which bored 64 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA into them as they slept, and, much more frequently, by larvae hatched from eggs laid in the nose or on sores and ulcers. A few flesh-flies live in excrement or in rotting plants, and some in other insects and in snails. Since, if exposed, a dead bird or rat would soon be consumed by flies, some of the large carrion beetles go to great pains to bury the car- casis..in] thie ground out of reach sof athe flies, thus insur- ing a supply of food for their own young. The “extere- ment of animals forms the food of many sorts of flies and beetles, Fic. 41. A Macrourid. and some For explanation of the figure see p. Xi. moths;’ ‘amid some’ of thie beetles, like the scarabs, bury balls of it in the same way that sexton beetles bury carcasses. Its odor, like that of carrion, is highly attractive to many butterflies. Many flowers have one or other of these odors, and thus attract the corresponding insects. From this brief sketch, which might be indefinitely length- ened and is perhaps too short, it is clear that insects feed not only upon vegetable material in all forms, but upon each other, upon all other kinds of animal matter both living and dead, and upon all kinds of waste material. In other words, where- ever in nature there exists a constant supply, continuous or intermittent, of any substance whatsoever available as insect food, some insect type makes use of it. Many insects, and even large groups of insects, are extra- ordinarily restricted in their diet, for instance the cockroach MAN’S CHIEF COMPETITORS, THE INSECTS 65 wasps, the caterpillar wasps, nearly all bees, lice, bed-bugs, and many moths and butterflies. Other insects have a wider range; the gypsy moth feeds on a very large variety of plants, while many of the crickets, grasshoppers and cockroaches will consume almost anything of plant or animal origin. It is interesting that no one type of insect is omnivorous; the flies are the most nearly so, but very few of them consume tough or dry substances. ‘ All of the insects, no matter what their habits, are food for carnivorous types and parasites, and over all of them hangs the Fics. 42-44. Three curious deep sea fishes. For explanations of the figures see p. xi. constant menace of disease, our common name for the attacks of those lowly organisms, mostly bacteria and fungi, which consume the living flesh. As an illustration of the intensity of the competition I may mention that about forty different kinds of parasites infest the grubs of the pine saw-fly alone. No accurate idea of insect life is possible without a reali- 66 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA zation of the abundance of these creatures and their potental- ity for rapid increase. In Cyprus in 1881 egg cases of grass- hoppers to the number of 1,600,000,000 and weighing 1,300 tons were destroyed with apparently little effect upon the species. A swarm of these insects that passed over the Red Sea in 1889 was estimated to cover 2,000 square miles and to weigh 42,850,000,000 tons; another swarm of similar or greater size was seen on the day following. In 1868 cockchafers were so abundant in Saxony that a reward was offered for them, and Sl U7 77>P Fic. 45. A deep sea fish. For explanation of the figure see p. xii. 1,500 tons, representing about 1,500,000,000 were destroyed. The most recent estimate of the total number of kinds of true insects already known is 640,920, and this number is being in- creased at the rate of about 6,000 every year. Large as it is it is believed to represent only about one-tenth of the real total. Of the more important groups the moths and butterflies num- ber 205,000, the butterflies alone 50,000; the beetles number 202,400 (including 500 strepsipterans); the bees, wasps, etc., number 91,000, the true flies 45,000, the dragon-flies and more or less similar types 25,000, and the grasshoppers, crickets and their allies 20,500. Besides the true insects there are 25,000 spiders, mites, etc. Oe MORE ABOUT INSECTS IN the preceding pages we have sketched the broad re- lationships of insects to the plants and to each other, and to the different types of animal life. Now let us delve still fur- ther into insect habits and, by the selection of a few examples, emphasize the point that wherever there exists a reservoir of food of any sort, permanent or temporary, some insect type is sure to find it and make use of it; and further that to insure perpetuation of their kind the insects have made use of all conceivable expedients. As an exclusive diet red pepper would seem to most of us to be quite unattractive; but there is one beetle which will live happily all its life in red pepper with never a thought that it is doing anything out of the ordinary. This, the saw-toothed grain beetle, is perhaps the commonest insect that habitually lives in groceries and, except for the small cockroach known as the ‘“‘water-bug,” the commonest in our pantries. Wherever anything edible is stored this insect will be found. It is chiefly vegetarian, but almost omnivorous, and is especially fond of cereals and breadstuffs, preserved fruits, nuts and seeds of various kinds; it also consumes yeast cakes, mace, snuff, and all sorts of medicinal roots, barks, herbs, and powders. The adults will feed upon sugar and have been reported in starch, tobacco, and dried meats, though it is doubtful if the insect breeds in such substances. Another small beetle with almost as great a dietary range is that one that bores those neat little holes in cigars, and lives also in all other forms of dried tobacco. We sometimes find old books perforated with holes made by the grub of a small beetle, and in more southern latitudes books may be almost completely demolished by the energetic activities of the white ants or termites. 67 68 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA In old houses at night or when it is very still a faint ticking sound is often heard which seems to come from the beams or from the furniture. It does come from the woodwork, and it Fics. 46-48. Three deep sea fishes. For explantions of the figures see p. xii. indicates the pres- ence thereimysor thereon of a little beetle called the “death-watch.” In dry wood their little grubs live very long before becoming large enough to transform to the adult. Last year a number of the beetles emerged from “a: ‘chains bought — seventeen years ago. The grubs had been in the wood when the chair was made. Other kinds of wood boring grubs have been known to live >, for more than thirty years before trans- forming into beetles. Another little insect, a psocid, also called the ‘‘death watch,” lives in chinks and crevices in houses and also makes a ticking sound at night. The furs, feathers, and woollen clothes in our closets and the carpets and rugs on our floors furnish abundant food for various moths and small beetles, most of the latter being MORE ABOUT INSECTS 69 known in their young stages as buffalo bugs. Dried meats, dried fruits and meal in our pantries are often found to har- bour the young of moths and beetles, while in the tropics the numerous large cockroaches will frequently reduce our window curtains to shreads, destroy the bindings of our books, eat labels from bottles, or even make a meal off of our toe-nails as we sleep. The little cheese-skipper, which in these days we do not often see, is the grub of a small black fly. About the fruit on our tables, and especially about fruit Fic. 49. A deep sea fish. For explanation of the figure see p. xii. exposed for sale in the markets, we often see delicate pale little flies of slow and feeble flight, quite different from the large, dark and vigorous house flies. Grapes are particularly attractive to this fly, most so when bruised. Alcohol is the magnet that attracts these flies to fruit, for they are able to live only where alcohol is present. Though swallowing alcohol, in large doses, too, with every mouthful they take in, their little grubs do not subsist upon it; what they live upon is the yeast plant which, growing luxuriantly in the decaying fruit, is continually transforming the sugar into alcohol. Flies form the food of many spiders, and conversely spiders 7O ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA form the food of many flies, especially the small headed hunch- backed spider flies. As grubs these live within the spiders or within their egg cocoons eating the eggs. These flies are Fics. 50, 51. A Skate, and a Liparid. For explanations of the figures see p. xiil. rather rare; but one of the small wood wasps. chiefly uses them to provide food for her young. One does not or- dinarily regard the butterflies as fero- cious creatures, though in the Ameri- can tropics the pug- nacious squeaking butterflies when fly- ing about you and at- tempting to frighten you away may cause you mild surprise. In our own woods, too, in the ‘early spring the common mourning-cloak which also chirps, though faintly, will sometimes fly di- rectly at you, and not infrequently you see it darting at the smaller birds. Few insects are more extraordinary in their habits than the lycaenid butterflies, the group to which belong our little hair- streaks, blues and coppers. Of most of these the caterpillars, which are small and slug like, have on the back a honey gland opening on the eleventh segment. On the segment just behind MORE ABOUT INSECTS 71 are two small openings through which are thrust two little white pillars crowned with tentacles looking like two little white sea-anemones. Ants are extremely fond of the honey from this gland and al- ways swarm about these caterpillars. When an ant approaches the little white pillars are with- drawn and a drop of honey is exuded from the gland which the ant at once licks up. After more honey has been formed, up the pillars go again, apparently as signals to the ants. Many kinds of these caterpillars are most /g assiduously cared for by 67 the ants in order that they may secure a con- stant supply of honey from their honey glands. Some tree ants, using their grubs as we do thread and needle, spin protecting webs about them; other ants cover ; them with shelters of Fics. 52-54. Three curious Sharks. various kinds from For explanations of the figures see p. xiii. which they drive them out at night to feed. Some sorts of these caterpillars when fully grown are always taken by the ants into their nests where in perfect safety they undergo their transformation into butterflies. A few ungrateful species impose upon the ants, allowing the ants to tend them and protect them from their enemies in 72 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA return for which they eat their young or consume their food supply. For instance the large blue of Europe at first feeds upon the blossoms of the thyme, giving up honey to the ants as usual; but when still quite small it leaves the plants and crawls down into ant nests thence- forth feeding on the full grown ant grubs. If you dis- turb an ant nest containing these ferocious little caterpillars (the ants make haste to carry them to safety, leaving their own young tilllater. A strange thing about these caterpillars is that when they feed on thyme they are most enthusiastic cannibals; conse- quently you never find but one on any flower. When % they. leave “thie Fics. 55-58. Four sharks. thyme they stop For explanations of the figures see p. xiii. this habit, so that several may live peaceably together in one ant nest. There is another blue in Europe which lives at first on gentians, later in ant nests suck- ing the blood of grubs. The very young of this are sociable in habit and do not eat each other. A species found in Africa, which has no honey gland, induces ants to feed it and lives an MORE ABOUT INSECTS 73 easy life by appropriating for itself food collected and intended for the ants’ young. Related to this is a very large one in the Indian region which lives in the nests of the green tree-driver ant eating their young. The caterpillars of several other kinds, among them one of ours, feed wholly on aphids or scale insects, and a few ad- ditional eat these in their later stages. Some eat other in- sects. Other lycaenid caterpillars feed on bark and lichens, or bore into fruits or seeds. The caterpillars of most of these pretty little butterflies are cannibals, and especially prefer to eat their friends just as they are changing to the pupa stage. Moths are much more varied in their habits than are the butterflies, just as they are also far more numerous. A num- ber of them as caterpillars feed in ant nests on young ants, or on scale or other insects, or on the excretions of fulgorids. A few are parasities in other caterpillars like the grubs of tachinid flies. Many eat dry animal matter of all kinds, including horn. One lives in the water in the leaves of our common pitcher-plant eating the insects which the plant has caught. In the American tropics one eats only a certain lichen which is never found except upon the rough and brittle hair of living sloths. Most moths, of course, like nearly all the butter- flies, are vegetarians, mostly leaf feeders, sometimes borers. Is there any better food than lobster or crab meat? If there is, then one whole group of insects shows poor judgment, for they eat nothing else, except that for them minute crus- taceans replace the crabs and lobsters. These insects, related to the common water striders of our ponds and streams, live upon the surface of the ocean, often far from land, picking these dainty morsels from the water. These are the only truly marine insects, though a spider, some centipedes, and a few spring-tails and carabid beetles live under stones between tide marks, and the spring-tails on the surface of tide pools, and the various beach-flies live in the rotting sea-weed cast up by the waves. 74 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA The common pitcher-plant lives partly on the insects so unfortunate as to fall into the water in its pitchers which are there digested and their juices then absorbed by the inner 59 Fics. 59, 60. A section of a manganese nodule, and the tooth of a giant extinct shark. For explanations of the figures see p. xiii. surface of the leaf. These masses of dead insects in process of digestion have been discovered by enter- prising living insects which find in them a store of ex- cellent food for the support of their own young. In the late summer cut a few leaves from a pitcher-plant, slit them open, and pour the contents out on a_ white plate. Among the packed remains of insects you will see mosquito “wigglers,” a number of slender and trans- lucent grubs, commonly sev- eral to a pitcher, and pos- sibly you will also find a large fat whitish maggot, and a small caterpillar en- cased in the dead remains of insects. The ‘“‘wigglers” are the young of a very pretty mos- quito which breeds nowhere else. You can raise these safely in your house as they do not bite. In the winter you can find these “wigglers”’ frozen solid in the cones of ice within the pitchers, and if you melt these cones they come once more to life. The slender and translucent grubs are the young of a kind of gnat found nowhere else, though MORE ABOUT INSECTS 75 related forms live everywhere in water. The large white mag- gots are the young of a large blow-fly which never “blows”; there are half a dozen kinds of these occurring only in the leaves of pitcher-plants. There are also various other less conspicuous things within these pitchers. Another plant we have which feeds on insects, the elegant little Drosera or sun-dew so common in our northern bogs and woods and often associated with the pitcher-plants. The sun- dew and its allies exhale a fungus-like odor which appears to be especially attractive, and therefore fatal, to the fungus gnats. In Australia, the headquarters of the sun-dews, there is a very large one with an enormous appetite. On this kind and no- where else there lives a long legged bug which walks up and down the leaves sucking the juices from the insects which the plant has caught. Agriculture is practiced by different ants in various highly specialized forms. The so-called leaf-cutting ants gather great masses of green leaves which they chew up and place in their nests. These ants are large and powerful and very busi- ness-like, and at Carriacou a party of them once in a single night cut out all the cabbages from the garden of a friend of mine with whom I lived. The cabbages were growing finely, and we had hoped the ants had overlooked them. Upon the wilted leaves within the nest there grows a fungus, and upon this only do the ants subsist. This fungus is never allowed to fruit, the fruiting heads being bitten off as soon as they ap- pear. A female ant, starting out to form a new colony, carries some of this fungus in a depression underneath her tongue; of her first batch of eggs she crushes a few and on them plants the fungus which lives upon the eggs until enough: workers have appeared to form a new garden. Most of the food we eat has been cooked and more or less altered, though we can, if necessary, live on uncooked sub- stances. But the white ants or termites are quite unable to live upon the food they eat. They consume cellulose, a sub- stance they are unable to digest; their alimentary tract, ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA Fics. 61-70. Various sea animals. For explanations of the figures see p. Xxiil. MORE ABOUT INSECTS 77 however, is tenated by numbers of minute creatures which attack the cellulose and break it down into other substances, and the termites digest the results of their activities. The termites, therefore, live entirely on the products of other creatures, and without the codperation of their little friends inside them they would soon starve to death no matter how much of their favorite food they ate. Beggars never making any attempt to work, and indeed incapable of doing anything at all, occur among the insects. Beetles of this description live in ants’ nests where they are fed and cared for by the ants with as much solicitude as if they were their own young’ The beetles, wasps, crickets, spiders, wood-lice, larvae of flies, moths, butterflies, etc., and even larger things, like legless lizards, that live in ants’ nests are a most absorbing study in themselves. Some are parasitic, others probably scavengers; but why most of them are tol- erated there we do not know. Incompetent decrepit beggars asking charity are one thing; energetic and powerful ruffians enforcing charity quite another. Certain ants come in the latter category Beyond raiding the nests of other species, killing the workers and carrying off the pupae, these ants do not work at all. The pupae they raise as slaves, and these slaves perform all the work for the colony, making the nest for and raising the young of their masters. The so-called cuckoo-bees have somewhat similar habits, living at the expense mostly of the bumble-bees the various species of which they resemble in color, though they are usually somewhat larger than their victims and lack the pollen basket on the hind legs. Cuckoo-bees are all males or females, without workers. A cuckoo-bee, entering a bumble- bees’ nest, appropriates the wax and honey, often killing the queen if she interferes. Her young are then fed through the efforts of the worker bumble-bees at the expense of the colony, which produces no male or female bumble-bees, only cuckoo- bees. Narcotic peddlers have their representatives among the 78 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA insects. There is a curious bug in Java which feeds on ants. When an ant approaches it rises up, exposing some long hairs on the under side which are wet with a secretion from some special glands. The ant greedily licks off this substance which, however, is intoxicating. When the ant has had enough to make it “sroggy”’ the bug with its sharp beak stabs it suddenly through the neck and sucks its juices out. Very many insects if shut up together with- out food will eat each other, like many cater- pillars, grasshoppers and crickets. Others most willingly do this merely if they get the chance, like the young of lace- winged flies and of some butterflies. For still others cannibalism forms a part of their regular routine exist- ence, and they contem- plate their relatives with the same lack of Fics. 71, 72. A pair of African Swallow-tails. sentiment that we do For explanations of the figures see p. xiil. buns or muffins. Their own _ brothers and sisters form the regular nourishment of many spiders in their early stages. The female spider lays a quantity of eggs within a silken ball. When these eggs hatch a sanguinary riot starts within this ball and the little spiders eat each other MORE ABOUT INSECTS 79 until those that survive are large and strong and fierce enough to face the outside world. Few of us I hope, no matter how sorely pressed by hunger, would eat our mothers, and yet this is the fixed habit of several insects. Perhaps the strangest of these is a little fly, one of the gall-midges, which as a grub is found beneath the bark of trees. The grubs of this gall-midge produce a number of young within their own bodies which immediately proceed to eat their mother, and when she is but a memory they bore out of her empty skin and start life on their own account. A swift retribution overtakes them, however; for young appear within them and they are devoured in the same way. ‘This process of progressive mother eating continues all the winter, and at the beginning of spring the now very numerous grubs transform into adults. Large, portly and ferocious wives, bloodthirsty in dispo- sition, bring to an end the happy lives of many insect hus- bands, as among the mantises where the female always eats her mate; while many female spiders, much larger and much more powerful than the males, seem to take a keen delight in killing or maiming them. For all the strange habits mentioned heretofore we can see a reason, though perhaps that reason seems peculiar. But the metal chewing habits of some other insects are not easily explained. During the Crimean war much damage was done to the lead bullets used by the French army through the activities of an insect larva or grub which bored holes through them. This circumstance first brought into general notice the fact that various insects of a number of groups eat metals and other mineral substances. About twenty years ago the activities of lead boring insects working on the lead sheathing of aerial telephone cables in California began to attract attention, and later telephone fuses, underground cables, and other structures in various places, especially within the tropics, were found to suffer from insect depre- dations. 80 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA Fics. 73-77. An alpine butterfly, and four oriental swallow-tails. For explanations of the figures see p. xiii. SSeS... MORE ABOUT INSECTS 81 Lead is the metal most commonly injured. Lead _ bullets and cartridges, lead, and also tin, roofing, lead rain gutters, lead stereotype plates, lead piping for both water and gas, lead lining of vats, tanks and cisterns, the sheet lead protection for bee-hives, lead crucibles, lead fuses, telephone batteries, the lead sheathing of aerial telephone cables, high tension cables, and lead covered cables in wooden cased conduits, all have suffered from insect attacks. But lead is not the only metal to suffer. The quicksilver backing of mirrors, the gilding of chandeliers, silver plate stored in closets, tin and zinc, are also sometimes damaged. Shell, horn, and even asbestos are bored by insects. The variety of insects which will damage metals is quite considerable. It was a horn-tail that bored the French car- tridges. A wasp has been found to damage lead cables in China. White ants or termites have damaged lead cable sheathing underground. The larva of the goat-moth some- times causes trouble. But the worst culprits are beetles of no less than eleven different families or major groups. At first it was believed that the insects fed upon the metal through which they bored, and, indeed, lead and zinc have actually been found in their stomachs. But with few excep- tions the cases recorded are merely accidental, though none the less troublesome, resulting from the fact that the metal blocks the path of an emerging adult or of a boring larva, and do not constitute direct attacks. As an example, near Saarau, in Silesia, a new sulphuric acid factory was built of timber infested by horn-tails. The adults emerged through the lead floor plates causing a loss of about $25,000. But in some cases the insects, for unexplained reasons, do make a direct attack, often with serious results. THE FOOD OF THE OTHER LAND ANIMALS We have seen that every part of a plant, and vegetable and animal matter in every form, is utilized as food by insects, and that all insects themselves serve as food for other insects, spiders, and related types, as well as for various parasitic plants. Insects alone would dominate the world, consuming all the surplus that could be spared by plants, were it not that they are restricted in their sphere of action by three main con- siderations. Their great muscular activity necessitates a constant and a large supply of oxygen without which they would soon become inactive and eventually perish, as well as abundant food of a relatively high nutritive value, and their external skeleton and method of breathing by slow diffusion of oxygen wholly or chiefly through minute rigid tubes im- poses upon them a relatively small maximum size. There is room on the land, therefore, for other animals with a more perfect system of respiration and an internal skeleton, admitting of a much larger size and greater activity; for less active animals with a less consumption of oxygen; and for less active animals capable of existing on food with less nutritive value. The animals with a more perfect system of respiration and with an internal skeleton are the vertebrates — the mam- mals, birds, reptiles and amphibians; those with a less oxygen consumption are the land planarians, nematodes or thread- worms, most slugs and snails, and the land nemerteans; and those capable of existing on food with a minimum of nutri- ment are the earth-worms and some snails. The land leeches, land crustaceans, and onychophores would seem to be direct competitors of the insects which have met with limited success. The vertebrates, with a structure emi- nently fitted for terrestrial life and which allows of a very 82 THE FOOD OF THE OTHER LAND ANIMALS 83 large maximum, though at the same time permits only a relatively large minimum, size, find themselves existing in a world abounding with vegetation upon which directly or indirectly countless hordes of insects live, together with snails and slugs and earth-worms and, near the water, crabs. Other animal types are in negligible quantity and keep themselves hidden from sight. Their large size and great muscular power enable the land vertebrates to ignore the insects as competitors for the vege- tation, as well as to utilize them, the earth-worms, the snails and the crabs as food. One curious fact in regard to the vertebrates is that the less perfected types are all, or nearly all, carnivorous, plant-eating forms being found only among the more specialized. The amphibians — frogs, toads, salamanders, etc. — like the fishes are almost exclusively carnivorous, feeding on insects, slugs and worms, while the very large toads will even devour young chickens and mice. But the tadpoles of some of them for a greater or lesser period feed on algae and plant remains in water, and the curious Siren is strictly vegetarian. A few are worm or snake-like and live underground, while others live in caves deep under ground and, blind themselves, like the blind fish feed on blind crustaceans None are marine. The great majority of the lizards are carnivorous, the larger feeding on small mammals, birds, fishes and eggs, the smaller on insects, worms and other invertebrates; but a number are herbivorous, as the larger iguanas and many agamids. One iguana, the only lizard that can be called marine, though living on land in the Galapagos Islands feeds beneath the water on sea-weed. A number of lizards of different groups are limbless and snake-like, some of these living underground like worms. The crocodiles, alligators, caymans, and their allies are all carnivorous. Some American crocodiles are ma- rine, the others living in fresh water. All the snakes are carnivorous. The burrowing snakes, which live underground and are small and never poisonous, feed on 84 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA Fics. 78-87. Various butterflies, and a day-flying moth. For explanations of the figures see pp. Xill, xiv. THE FOOD OF THE OTHER LAND ANIMALS 85 insects, worms, etc. The sea snakes, with much the same habits as the large tropical eels though usually more helpless on land, are fish eaters, and all are poisonous. ‘The terrestrial snakes and the tree snakes, many of which are very venomous, feed chiefly on vertebrates, including other snakes; some eat eggs, and the smaller ones eat insects. The fresh water snakes eat frogs, fish and other aquatic animals. Rattlesnakes feed only on warm-blooded animals, the eastern diamond-back, for instance, almost exclusively on cotton-tail rabbits. The land tortoises, a few terrapins, and some of the marine turtles are vegetable feeders, but most turtles are carnivorous, feeding on fish, frogs, insects, and other small animals. Our common snapper often bites the feet off of young ducks. As a group, the birds are set apart from all the other verte- brates by their superior method of locomotion, combined with their superior vision. Small birds are preéminently destroyers of insects, which they catch in the air like the flycatchers, swallows and goatsuckers, pick off the leaves like the vireos and most warblers, search for on the ground, like most thrushes, water-thrushes, starlings, etc., dig out of wood, like the wood- peckers and wood-hewers, extract from flowers, like the hum- ming-birds, find concealed in the crevices of bark, like the creepers, or even pursue under water, like the dippers. Some show decided preferences, like robins for earth-worms, starlings for millepeds and flickers for ants, though robins and flickers eat many types of insects and even fruit, while king- birds, like phoebes and other of the larger flycatchers, are very fond of young fish. But by no means do all small birds ex- ist entirely on insects. There are many seed and fruit eaters among them, especially among the finches or sparrows, though these often feed their young on soft insects, and many birds normally or chiefly insectivorous will subsist on vegetable material if forced to do so. The larger birds tend more toward segregation into vege- tarian and carnivorous types, both inclining toward further specialization along particular lines. The pigeons, parrots, os- ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA 86 triches, swans, geese, many ducks, and gallinaceous birds are examples of exclusively or primarily vegetarian types, while x Z g z a es Fics. 88-92. A Whip-cracker, a day-flying moth, the Spurge Hawk Moth, and the Pandora Moth, with dried caterpillars. For explanations of the figures see p. xiv. the eagles, hawks, owls, cormorants, pelicans, gulls, terns, gannets, herons, storks, and vultures are examples of exclusively But cranes are more or less omnivorous. carnivorous types. Some vegetarians have a very limited diet, the hoactzin, THE FOOD OF THE OTHER LAND ANIMALS 87 for instance, eating only the leaves of Arum; this is especially the case, however, in the carnivorous forms because of the widely varying habits of their victims. Many birds, including certain African and Malayan owls, certain hawks, some eagles, the pelicans, cormorants, gannets, large herons, large kingfishers and most terns subsist entirely or chiefly upon fish. The secretary bird and certain kites, like our swallow-tailed kite, are reptile feeders, preferring snakes; the road-runner, a curious cuckoo, feeds extensively on lizards; the everglade kite and the limpkin live on molluscs. Certain strange crepuscular hawks eat bats, which they swallow whole, with an occasional bird, and vultures feed on carrion. Of smaller birds with curious or specialized feeding habits may be mentioned most cuckoos and the caterpillar shrikes, which feed mainly on caterpillars; the crocodile birds, which subsist largely on the parasitic crustaceans which they pick off the gums of crocodiles; some ant-thrushes, which feed more or less extensively on ants, insects also preferred by the ant-shrikes and the ant-eating woodpeckers; and the ox- peckers, which feed largely on the sores on the backs of cattle caused by large fly maggots just beneath the skin. Some birds, like crows and ravens, will eat almost anything either of animal or vegetable nature. Sudden increase in animal life of various kinds usually re- sults in the convergence upon it of various birds some of which do not ordinarily subsist upon that particular creature. Ponds in which small fish, especially trout, are raised are haunted by a large assortment of birds, many normally insectivorous, which raid the young fish. Plagues of grasshoppers attract quantities of terns and small gulls, small birds of prey, gallina- ceous birds, crows, and various finches. Ant armies in the tropics are followed by many birds, a few picking off the ants, but most watching for the insects, small mammals and reptiles fleeing in terror from them. The appearance of the seventeen year cicada is accompanied by a temporary change in the habits of very many of our birds which, ordinarily living in 88 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA the open, take to the woods to avail themselves of the abun- dance of new food. The English sparrow, for instance, and near the coast the gulls and terns for a few weeks become more or less of woodland denizens, subsisting for the time being almost entirely on these insects. Many birds are very enterprising in discovering new foods, or in adopting them from other birds, especially when introduced into new surroundings. New Zealand has no mam- mals except for a few bats. Just how one of the large native parrots there ac- quired the propensity for eating the kidney fat of sheep is not quite clear. But the slowness, clumsiness and stupidity of the larger parrots when compared with most other birds seems to be combined with a Fics. 93-98. Six destructive moths. habit of trying any- For explanations of the figures see p. xiv. thing that looks edible, in correlation with a flexibility of habit in other ways. Perhaps it should be mentioned that tame parrots will readily eat an extra- ordinary variety of substances, and are often very fond of meat. English sparrows ordinarily will not eat sunflower THE FOOD OF THE OTHER LAND ANIMALS 89 seeds; but if they see another bird, as a cardinal, eating them they will promptly follow suit. The flight of birds gives them a very great advantage in the search for food. As birds cannot hibernate and require a very large amount of food in proportion to their weight on ac- count of their great activity and high tem- perature, which is normally as much as 110.2° in some, the colder regions would be almost birdless were it not that the birds are able, when the waters freeze and the land life passes into the winter con- ditions, to fly south- ward to regions where they can still find , abundant food. Trop- 2: ical birds of many == kinds also wander about over more or less definite tracks at different seasons. There are various Fics. 99-104. Moths. types of parasitic birds which live by robbing other birds. Most, but not all, of the Old World cuckoos, though only one of the American so far as known, lay their eggs, or rather place them, in the nests of other smaller birds; the young cuckoo, shoving the other young birds out of the nest, is reared by the foster parents. The For explanations of the figures see p. xiv. go ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA Figs. 105-118. Moths For explanations of the figures see pp. Xlv, XV. . THE FOOD OF THE OTHER LAND ANIMALS OI great spotted cuckoo victimizes magpies and even crows, birds which we look upon as unusually intelligent. In North and South America most, but not all, of the small blackbirds known as cowbirds because of their fondness for the company of cattle have the same habit. The adults of most cuckoos are caterpillar eaters (some eat lizards), and the cowbirds are insectivorous. The jaegers, the skuas, the frigate birds, and, to a lesser extent, the bald eagle rob other fish eating birds of their prey, while the large gulls feed very generally on the eggs and young of other sea birds and the crows and jays destroy the eggs and young of birds in our woods and orchards. Some birds, like the house wren, will destroy the eggs of other birds for no apparent reason, as they do not eat them. As a group birds are chiefly animal feeders, devouring mainly insects and other invertebrates, especially crustaceans, but also all other vertebrates, including each other, and carrion; many are fruit and seed, some honey, and a few leaf eaters. The harder parts of plants, vegetable detritus and the fungi are left practically untouched. In sharp contrast to the amphibians, reptiles and birds, the mammals are chiefly vegetarians, especially leaf, twig and root eaters. By far the largest group is that of the rodents, including rats, mice, squirrels, porcupines, hares, rabbits, beavers, voles, etc. These are mostly small but very numerous in individuals, terrestrial or burrowing, more rarely tree in- habiting or aquatic, and feed almost wholly on the roots, bark, stems and leaves of plants, or on seeds or nuts. Some, espec- ially the smaller mice, are very fond of insects and will feed largely upon them if they are able to get them. The sea-cows are all vegetarians, the marine forms eating sea-weeds and those living in rivers water plants. The ele- phants and the numerous hoofed animals and their allies are all terrestrial and all leaf eaters, some consuming also twigs, bark and roots, as well as lichens. A very few, like the pigs, are more or less omnivorous and will sometimes feed on other animals. These creatures are of large size, nearly all, except Q2 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA Z "} “ling Gail Cac f Mf AN x : SS 3 at SS } it Wy Ne an : Fics. 119-133. Moths. For explanations of the figures see p. Xv. THE FOOD OF THE OTHER LAND ANIMALS 93 for forest living types, gregarious, and taken all together repre- sent an enormous bulk. Over much of the world the native types are now much reduced in numbers or even have become extinct; but the balance has been little changed, since they have been replaced with domestic cattle, horses, sheep and goats. The so-called edentates, including the sloths, ant-eaters (except the Australian), armadillos, pangolins and aard-varks, are all uncanny ludicrous beasts with strange habits; they are few in species and, with some exceptions, rather rare. The sloths live in trees and never come to the ground; all feed on leaves. The ant-eaters live on the ground or in trees and feed mostly on white ants, though also eating other insects. The aard-varks, with the same habits, live in burrows. The pan- golins and armadillos are burrowing or terrestrial, but one small pangolin lives in trees. The pangolins and some armadil- los are mainly white ant eaters; other armadillos will eat other insects as well or even most animal substance, living or dead. The insectivores include a large number of mammals, mostly terrestrial, a few burrowing, tree living, or even aquatic, re- presented by the moles, shrews, hedge-hogs and allied creatures, most of which live chiefly on insects, though the moles eat mainly earth-worms, another type lives on fish, and still an- other is partially herbivorous. The carnivores, the lions, tigers, Jaguars and other cats, the wolves, dogs, foxes, bears, ichneumons, otters, skunks, rac- coons, seals, and various other forms, are all carnivorous, mostly feeding on other vertebrates, especially on other mam- mals, birds and fishes, the smaller largely on insects, and some, like the hyaenas, chiefly on carrion. A few, such as the crab- eating raccoon, have curiously specialized habits. The walrus feeds on molluscs. The reverse of the habit recently adopted by the New Zealand kea is exhibited by the Mediterranean seal which, living on fish, has a fondness for grapes and is said sometimes to commit great havoc in the vineyards of Sardinia and Sicily at the time of the vintage. 94 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA Fics. 134-145. The cotton Leaf-worm Moth in all stages, and the caterpillars and pupae of other moths. For explanations of the figures see p. xv. THE FOOD OF THE OTHER LAND ANIMALS 95 The bats, all of which fly, like most birds, though guided by their hearing instead of by their sight, are nearly all carniv- orous, and mostly insect eaters; a few catch birds, one is a fish eater, some are blood suckers, and several of the largest ones eat fruit, often committing serious depredations. In Australia except for the so-called monotremes, including the spiny ant-eaters and the duck-billed mole (Ornithorhynchus) which lay eggs like birds, for the bats and for some rodents, all of the mammals are of a single type called the marsupial because in nearly all, the females possess pouches in which their singularly helpless young are reared. In the absence of competition from more efficient types the marsupials in Aus- tralia have to a considerable degree paralleled the chief mam- malian types found in other lands, some being vegetarians, like the kangaroos, others fierce predaceous beasts like the marsupial wolves and the Tasmanian devils, some ant-eaters, some feeding on insects generally, and some more or less omnivorous. Outside of Australia the only marsupials are the carnivorous opossums of South and southern North Amer- ica. To complete the picture of life on land let us consider briefly the food of the few remaining groups. The land molluscs, the snails and slugs, occur everywhere and form the most numerous and important animal group after the insects and the vertebrates. Nearly all of them inhabit damp places out of doors, or cellars, and are active only at night or in wet weather. They feed chiefly on decaying vege- tation and on fungi, but often on green vegetation and on fruit, sometimes causing much damage in gardens. Some pass sand or mud through the alimentary canal, digesting out the organic particles, like earth-worms. A few are more or less carnivorous, earth-worms being their chief victims. One land snail possesses the power of boring into rock. In addi- tion to the snails and slugs, a small bivalve, like a minute clam, is sometimes found among moist leaves in the woods, usually near water. ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA Fics. 146-158. Caterpillars of various moths. For explanations of the figures see p. xvi. THE FOOD OF THE OTHER LAND ANIMALS Q7 The true worms, or annelids, are represented on land by the earth-worms, the land leeches, and the onychophores. Earth- worms are found all over the world, living in burrows in the ground or in decaying material. They swallow earth and pass it through their bodies, digesting out of it some of the organic matter it contains, a manner of feeding adopted by very few insects, though duplicated in the snails. Darwin calculated that there were on an average 53,000 earth-worms in an acre of garden ground, and that they passed to tons of soil annu- ally through their bodies. Some earth-worms grow to a very large size, five or six feet in length, but most of them are a few inches long. ‘They furnish food for the young of certain parasitic flies and certain fire-flies and probably also of other predaceous types, for some centipedes, some snails, and the land planarians, for moles and occasionally other mammals, and for various birds, and they are always much infested with internal parasites. The land leeches in the eastern tropics are few in num- ber of kinds, but abundant in individuals in suitable locations, and greedily suck blood. The onychophores are curious worm- like creatures, active at night, which feed on various insects which they catch by spitting liquid silk at them by which they are hopelessly entangled; they live in the tropics and in the south- ern hemisphere, and for the most part are rare and local. Closely allied to the insects are the crustaceans, including the lobsters, crabs and similar creatures. The common wood- lice, pill-bugs or sow-bugs, found in rotting wood, under logs, etc., sometimes in ants’ nests and in cellars, occur everywhere. They live chiefly on damp decaying vegetable matter. The land crabs of the tropics and some crayfish are almost entirely terrestrial, though not well adapted for terrestrial life. They feed on plants and dead vegetable matter, and sometimes on carrion; one of the best known of these is the famous eastern robber crab which climbs cocoanut trees. As compared with insects the land crabs and crayfish are very large and pow- erful; but the number of kinds is limited, and most of them do not go very far from water. 98 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA Land planarians are abundant in the ground and in pro- tected situations in damp forests in the tropics, whence they are frequently brought into our green-houses. T hey feed upon Fics. 159-170. Beetles commonly found in houses. For explanations of the figures see p. xvi. earth-worms. A very few sorts of nemerteans live on land; they are all carnivorous. Abundant every- where in all situa- tions, free-living or as parasites, are multitudes of nema- todes or thread- worms and of proto- zoans. For the most part these are small and hence not often noticed; but they must not be forgot- ten. How can the con- ditions of animal life on land briefly be described? Active animal life exists at all temper- atures from the melting point of ice, 2°, to aboutwos below the boiling point of water, and from an air pressure of one atmosphere to a pressure of about one third of that amount. Below the freezing point only those animals remain active and feed which, like the birds and mam- mals, create a special temperature in which they live insulated from and independent of that of the air. THE FOOD OF THE OTHER LAND ANIMALS 99 All animal life is based upon plant life, for only plants can convert inorganic into organic substance. Insects and _ their allies represent the major part of animal life on land; they feed on all parts of plants, and on every sort of plant, and are the main support of the other animals which do not feed on plants. The vertebrates form the next most important group, and of these certain types of mammals are the chief plant feeders. The molluscs and the earth-worms are of some im- portance in the picture as a whole, while the other animal groups are all but negligible. The vertebrates which are not plant feeders eat other verte- brates and insects, a few the snails and worms. The insects which are not plant feeders eat other insects and vast numbers of them, horse-flies, tsetse flies, stable-flies, mosquitoes, some midges, buffalo-flies, deer-flies, black-flies, sand-flies, and other blood-sucking flies, fleas and jiggers, bot, warble, and other parasitic flies, bugs, biting and sucking lice, horn moths and other moths, mites, ticks, and various other forms, subsist wholly or in part upon the vertebrates. And within the bodies of all insects, vertebrates and other creatures live hordes of other parasites both animals and plants from which no living thing is ever wholly free. ANIMAL FLIGHT OnE of the most interesting phenomena connected with many of the animals that live on land, as well as some that live in water, is the ability they possess of traveling through the air, and any account of animals, especially of land ani- mals, would be incomplete without a brief description of the very diverse ways in which they do this. The possibility of passage through the air assists the animals in their struggle for existence in four main ways. Among most insects flight serves merely to distribute the various types more widely and more evenly than would otherwise be possible for these small creatures, thus enabling them more efficiently to make use of the food supply. For instance, you plant some cabbages in your garden. Soon some bright green cater- pillars appear upon them. How did they get there? Their mother, a small white butterfly, in flying about discovered them. She was raised on someone else’s cabbages, possibly miles away. The uncountable myriads of insects cruising through the air all summer day and night searching for a place to lay their eggs or for a mate, form an important food supply themselves, as their total bulk is very large, and many birds, like swallows, most bats, and many other insects live exclusively upon them. Hope of escape from enemies alone impels the flying-fish and flying-squid to journey through the air, and many birds use their wings only under similar conditions. Without the power of flight bees could not store their honey, nor could most birds find sufficient food. The food of vultures and the larger birds at sea, for instance, is widely scattered, and to live at all such birds must be enabled to inspect an enormous area each day. Before taking up flight in detail let us digress a bit and see how the mind of man has been influenced by the sight of birds 100 ANIMAL FLIGHT IOI and bats and insects passing easily through the air from place to place. From the very earliest times of which we have a record and among all the human races one of the most strongly marked of human yearnings has always been the desire to fly, to be able like a bird to leave the earth and to soar higher and higher until all earthly things are left behind. ‘This desire to fly is reflected in the folk-lore and stories of all peoples, and to a greater or lesser extent in all religions. The most conspicuous soaring bird, the eagle, some variety of which occurs almost everywhere, has been adopted as a national, tribal or family emblem to a greater extent than any other animal or object. You all have heard of the Amer- ican eagle. He figures on the President’s flag, on many of our coins, sometimes on our postage stamps, on much of our official letter paper, and on the caps of our army and navy officers. We use the eagle to designate colonels in the army and marine corps, and captains in the navy; and in the army further for all “‘unattached”’ officers, and officers of the Gen- eral Staff. Formerly our generals also wore the eagle, com- bined with two stars. We used to call one of our coins the “eagle,” and more than one hundred of our towns and villages have “eagle” in their names. While the eagle and the falcon are everywhere associated in the public mind with noble and sublime ideas or aspirations, the creatures that fly by night suggest to all peoples something mysterious and unnatural, and give rise to feelings of awe and dread. The owl is regarded with superstitious fear in many countries, and always is a symbol of something either harmful, or at least uncanny. He is feared or distrusted, but never respected. We speak of people sometimes as “wise old owls,” though we never apply this term to those we really hold in high regard. The bat is the most characteristic and conspicuous of night ranging creatures, and in the day time completely disappears. It is thus quite natural that in the minds of superstitious peoples the bat should be the preéminent symbol of darkness 102 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA and of mysterious evil. Malignant spirits and the devil are usually shown with bats’ wings in contrast to good and kindly spirits and angels, which are depicted with birds’ wings. Optimism, or a ten- dency to look upon the cheerful side of things, is one of the most fundamental traits of human na- ture. Wherever we have in our language two contrasting words differing from each other in the occur- rence or absence of the prefix) anew meaning “not” this prefix is always placed before a word of good import and never before a word of evil import, show- ing that our habit is always primarily to contemplate the good and only secondarily to consider the bad in the world about Fics. 171-180. Various destructive Weevils. us. This tendency has brought about a curious transforma- tion in the character of one of the oldest and most universally present of all symbolic animals, the dragon. In all the ancient Asiatic and European civilizations the flying dragon has played an important part. From very early days, perhaps so long ago as 5000 B.c., to the present in For explanations of the figures see p. xvi. ANIMAL FLIGHT 103 China and Japan, and also in England as shown on the reverse of the British sovereign, the reptilian dragon with its bat-like wings has preserved an astonishing constancy of form. But, as has been pointed out, a curious transformation took place in Asia Minor and the Mediterranean countries, from Baby- lonia and Egypt through Assyria to Greece. The wings, which at first had been associated with the fore limbs of the typical dragon and had been bat-like, became bird-like, and then were placed on the shoul- ders of the lion and of the horse, and finally on man him- self, as we see on the great columns of the Greek temples of Ephesus. But all these fly- ing animals are historically descended from the same com- mon stock as the dragons of China and Japan and St. George’s dragon of England which still preserve the aspect of reptiles. The Bishop of Exeter regards the Hebrew cherubim as probably orig- inally dragons, and the figure Fics. 181-186. More Weevils. of the conventional angel is For explanations of the figures merely the human form of the see p. Xvi. dragon. Besides the eagles, bats and dragons there are many other flying creatures of less, though still far-reaching, significance as symbols. Such are the dove of peace, the rooster, Egypt’s sacred ibis, storks and swans, the “‘quetzal” of Guatemala, and a host of other birds remarkable for their powers of flight or for their beauty. In parts of South America the natives tell you that the gorgeous butterflies called Morphos which 104 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA {90 191 Fics. 187-193. Various destructive Beetles. For explanations of the figures see pp. Xvi, Xvil. ANIMAL FLIGHT 105 are only seen high up among the trees on dying enter the ground and there become preserved as emeralds. Flying creatures, especially birds, butterflies, winged mammals and winged serpents, are familiar subjects for more or less conven- tionalized designs, especially on pottery and totem poles, and coats of arms, but more or less on all ornamented objects, and on all types of family or individual insignia. Of all known kinds of animals almost two-thirds can fly, or at least glide through the air, and of land living creatures the flying sorts number about three-quarters of the whole. There are more than 400,000 kinds of flying insects, more than 20,000 flying birds, 600 flying mammals, all but a few of which are bats, possibly 60 flying fishes, and a few flying lizards, snakes, and molluscs, and perhaps frogs and crustaceans. Of flying creatures some will fly only at rare intervals and under strong compulsion, and others, like the flying ants and termites, while strong fliers, make only a single flight after which they discard their wings by cutting them off with their mandibles or by breaking them off at a line of special weakness and again become ground living. From such as these the amount of time spent on the wing by animals increases step by step until we reach the chimney swifts which fly practically throughout the daylight hours, the insect eating bats which seem to fly most, if not all, the night, and the albatrosses and related sea-birds which in some localities appear to fly for days and nights together without rest. The birds are the most familiar of the larger flying creatures. Flying birds range in size from the smallest humming-birds, which are much smaller than our common North American kinds, to the South American condor, with very broad wings, and the wandering albatross with very narrow wings spreading eleven feet or more. It is a curious fact that the larger the animal the smaller in proportion are the wings. Insects have relatively much larger wings than birds, and small birds have relatively much larger wings than big ones. In the mosquito for each pound of body 106 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA weight there is a wing area of 4 square yards, 6 square feet and 105 square inches; in a butterfly of average size each pound of body weight represents a wing area of 3 square yards, Fics. 194-201. Some destructive, and some pre- daceous Beetles. For explanations of the figures see p. Xvil. 8 square feet, and 87 square inches; in the swallow this is reduced to only 4 square feet and 18 square inches, in the pigeon to I square foot and 14 square inches, and in the stork to only 122 square inches. Not only do the small birds have larger wings than big- ger ones, but they move them much more rapidly. The wings of the smaller humming-birds vi- brate so fast that it is difficult for the eye to follow them. The wing beats of the sparrow are 780 per minute, of the duck 540, of the pigeon 480, and of the crow about 120. It was the necessity of finding answers to these questions, why do small birds have to have larger wings than big ones, and why do they have to move their larger wings more rapidly, that made the develop- ment of the flying-machine so difficult. The wings of many of ANIMAL FLIGHT 107 the larger birds like the loons and grebes as we see them in the air look ridiculously small, yet these birds can fly for enormous distances at a high speed. It is, however, very difficult for them to get started, and many of them can- not rise from the ground at all. Bird’s wings per- form two functions; they lift the bird and they drag it forward. We all know that if a light object is thrown it will not travel so far as a heavier object thrown at the same speed. A pitcher cannot throw a ball of feathers so far as he can a base ball. If a large and heavy bird can once get going at good speed a relatively small force will keep him going. His body is inclined in such a way that it is kept in the air through Fics. 202-221. Pupae of Beetles. its momentum on For explanations of the figures see p. Xvil. the principle of a kite. The wings by their motion serve to maintain the speed, but have very little lifting to do. The lighter and smaller the bird the less is its momentum. Lessened momentum prevents it from maintaining its height by inclining its body against the air. 108 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA If the wings cease their action the body drops almost instantly. A small bird can approach a perch at full speed and alight upon it with very little voluntary checking of its momentum, but a heavy bird must expend much energy in checking its for- ward impetus before it can alight with safety. The wings of large and heavy birds serve chiefly to maintain speed, the height being maintained by the momentum and the kiting effect of the body upon the air. The wings of small and light birds must constantly lift as well as maintain momentum — or rather they must constantly lift the bird and pull it forward. This is the reason why the larger the bird the smaller the wings; : but the large birds, while they fly with much less effort than the small birds in spite of their smaller wings, have great difficulty in getting started and in stopping. From this it naturally follows that while small birds are found everywhere in all situations, large strong flying birds are mostly confined to the sea and to very open regions where they can arise and alight with safety. The speed at which birds fly varies very much, but it is not so great as is commonly supposed. You can easily prove this for yourself by pacing them in an automobile along a country road. Only a few birds can fly as fast as the fastest express trains, and none can go so fast as the speedier aeroplanes. Wild ducks and geese have been found to travel on their migrations at a rate of between 44 and 48 miles an hour. Homing pigeons usually travel at between 50 and 55 miles an hour. While some swifts may attain a speed as great as 100 miles an hour, most of our smaller birds fly at a rate of be- tween 25 and 28 miles an hour, or at about the average speed maintained by an automobile. The power of flight and the possibility of moving rapidly from place to place high above such obstacles as water, trees, fences, hills, etc., permits the birds to wander about from season to season, visiting now one region now another in search of food. In the autumn many of our common birds, like the swifts, the swallows, the flycatchers and the warblers disappear ANIMAL FLIGHT 109 to the southward, and other birds from the north, like the ~ northern chickadees and nuthatches, the crossbills, and the pine and evening grosbeaks, appear in the places they have left. Some birds, like the robin, do not go very far, wintering chiefly in the southern states. Many go to Central and South Amer- ica, while a few travel enormous distances. The Golden Plover, which nests in the extreme north of North America, winters in the south of South America. This bird after leaving Lab- rador ordinarily does not come down again until it arrives in Guiana, more than 1700 miles away. It is frequently seen passing over the easternmost of the West Indies at an immense height, and has also been seen high in air several hundred miles east of the Bermudas. Coming north it takes a different route, up the Mississippi valley. The Eastern Godwit, a plover-like bird which nests in Alaska and in eastern Siberia, spends the winter in New Zealand. A great many apparently feeble birds can cover enormous distances without alighting. The little Sora rail can cross the Caribbean Sea twice a year without difficulty, and two sorts of cuckoos pass every year from New Zealand to New Caledonia and back over 1000 miles of sea. In many places it is still erroneously believed that the small birds get about by simply perching on the backs of larger birds and being carried by them, so incredible do such powers of flight appear in such weak creatures. The height at which birds migrate varies considerably. From measurements taken on birds as they crossed the face of the moon at night it was found that the migrations in May were at a height of from 1200 to 2400 feet, and those in Octo- ber at between 1400 and 5400 feet. The flight of birds may be roughly divided into three types, ordinary flight, with almost innumerable variations, such as we see in the common land birds, soaring, and gliding. In the usual type of flight the bird moves through the air with a continual motion of the wings. This is the only type of flight possible in still air, and is characteristic of most land birds, all the smaller sea birds, the ducks, geese, herons, and many others. IIO ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA The large birds progress ordinarily in a straight line, with a slight raising and lowering of the body at every wing beat if the flight is slow, as in the herons. Their momentum and the kite-like effect of their heavy bodies tend to keep them up, and they are very careful not to lose altitude on account of the great difficulty they experience in rising again. Most of the small birds have a wavy or undulating flight which is especially well seen in the finches and the wood-peckers. The rapidity with which they descend when the wing beats cease shows how slight their momentum is, and how essential for them is the great development of lifting power. Very many of the larger broad winged birds, as hawks, eagles, vultures, ravens, pelicans, cranes, spoonbills, screamers, herons, etc., are able to circle on motionless wings, gradually rising higher and higher, until they almost or quite disappear. These birds are large and heavy, and compared with small birds their wing area is relatively less. How do they do it? Birds seldom soar in cloudy weather, or in cold regions, or in the winter. Soaring is only possible when the earth is heated by the sun’s rays. When the earth is heated the warm air just above it rises, and if the heating is intense and long continued strong columns of air rise for very considerable distances, especially over small hills. In these ascending columns of air the birds find a breeze of considerable strength blowing directly upward the force of the ascending air being sufficient not only to keep them up but to enable them to glide continually downward, yet at the same time rise. Birds soar in circles in order to keep within the ascending column of air; if they fall over the edge of the column they begin to flap in order to get back into it again. You some- times see a hawk do this. Soaring is a very popular pastime of the large birds in the drier regions of the tropics, and in some places, as in Egypt, hundreds of birds of many sorts may frequently be seen soaring together. One of the most expert of the soaring birds is the great clumsy looking adjutant of India, which by many is supposed to sleep while soaring. In ANIMAL FLIGHT Tre the warm regions the appearance of clouds which obscure the sun promptly weakens the force of the ascending columns of air and soon cause all the soaring birds to flap and to return to the ground. With us in the north only a few birds, mostly eagles, hawks and vultures, soar, and these only on warm, bright and sunny days. Many birds, such as partridges, pheasants, quail, tinamous, etc., when startled fly diagonally upward with great violence to a considerable height and then glide downward to a place of safety, and most of the larger birds glide more or less when approaching the ground or a perch. ‘This gliding has been developed not only in the direction of soaring as just described, but also into a combination of gliding and soaring — mostly gliding — which is characteristic of the flight of a very large number of sea birds. Many of these are such adepts that they can glide all day and never flap their wings. The albatross is the most marvellous of all the gliders; he courses back and forth over the waves, always keeping close to the water, for hour after hour with his long narrow wings extended almost motionless. Waves are rows of little hills stretching across the wind. The wind on striking one of these rows of hills is deflected upward with considerable force, and it is by taking advantage of these strong updraughts that the albatross is able to glide perpetually. When flying with the wind the albatross rapidly loses altitude, so he must frequently turn back into the wind again to allow the updraughts from a few waves to raise him anew to the required height. His course to leeward, or down the wind, is therefore a series of loops with long gliding inter- vals between, and his course across the wind is a similar series of loops. As a steamer plows its way along, the air behind it is drawn under the stern with such force as to rise into a column of considerable height just behind it. On this column the albatrosses frequently balance themselves, appearing per- fectly motionless except for the movement of their heads, traveling at the same rate as the ship, being kept up and ae? ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA drawn along through power originating in the engines of the ship itself. Other sea birds, especially gulls, are fond of bal- ancing themselves on this air column. In a dead calm the albatross is a pitiable object. He sits on the water, rarely attempting to fly. He can only rise with the FIGS. 222-2309. Fics. 246-250. Grubs of various Beetles. Some Strepsipterans. For explanations of the figures see pp. Xvii, xviil. greatest difficulty after a prodigious amount of splashing and flapping, and his very slow, heavy and laborious progress is by an alternation of clumsy flapping and gliding, suggesting the flight of an awkward lazy pelican, of which he soon tires; in fact he is all but helpless. The albatross, the most wonderful flier among the birds, is kept in the air not by any efforts of his own, but by a combination of strong wind and waves, and ANIMAL FLIGHT LE hence the albatross is exclusively a bird of the windier regions of the oceans. He can only exist where the wind is always strong and the waves are always high. The calm belts of the tropics form an impassible barrier for him, and he cannot fly for any appreciable distance over land. The stormy southern oceans and the equally boisterous north Pacific are his home, but no one kind exists in both these places. He cannot live in the tropic calms, nor in the relatively calm North Atlantic. Quite a number of smaller sea birds ranging in size from the giant fulmars down to the smaller shearwaters have the same habit of flight as the albatross, and are quite as good fliers as is he; but for the most part they are smaller with broader wings and can fly well in winds so light that they would not serve the albatross at all, and they can also fly well, though with much flapping, during calms. When a strong wind strikes a cliff a considerable amount of air is deflected upward forming a column or wall of air for a considerable height above the top of the cliff. Such a mass of rising air is favorite play-ground for birds which soar above it just as other birds do in the columns of warm air rising from the hot tropical lowlands. At Agattu Island in the western Aleutians where the sun very rarely shines — there is no record that anyone ever saw the sun there— but where the wind always blows there is a cliff near the anchorage on and near which all sorts of birds abound. When the wind blows against this cliff the air above it becomes filled with birds, some merely flying back and forth, like the puffins, murres and guillemots, but others wheeling and soaring like hawks. Most conspicuous among these soaring birds are the geese, cormorants and ravens, birds which ordinarily we never think of as indulging in diver- sions of this nature. The gulls, too, are very numerous, but as the gull is an expert balancer and glider it seems only natural that he should be here. In mountainous regions there are always strong updraughts of air, both because of the upward deflection of the winds and because of the warming action of the sun’s rays. Mountainous II4 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA regions therefore are especially adapted to the development of the soaring habit. The uprush of air due to deflection of the winds makes soaring possible on cloudy days, and in the 241 Fics. 240-245. Early stages of West Indian Fire-flies. For explanations of the figures see p. xviii. far north and south under conditions which would prevent it on flat land where the only updraughts are the resumltror heating. Mountainous re- gions always harbor many soaring birds. As a fruit-eating bird would derive no ad- vantage whatever from the practice of soaring, all fruit be- ing far more visible from below or from the side than from above, and also sta- tionary, the soaring birds of mountainous regions are mostly predaceous or car- rion feeders, or a combination of the two, or quite om- nivorous. They in- clude eagles, vul- tures, hawks and ravens, and because of the great advantage that they have in being able with a minimum of exertion to survey a vast amount of territory and thus to detect a maximum amount of food, the largest of the ANIMAL FLIGHT II5 flying birds, such as the condor, the Californian vulture, the lammergeier, the griffon and brown vultures, all the larger eagles and the ravens live in mountainous lands. The buoyant effect of wind blowing against a hill side is easily appreciated by watching a turkey buzzard quartering back and forth in his peculiar see-sawing way without flapping his wings, yet without losing altitude. Among the birds we find all possible gradations from birds like the albatrosses, frigate-birds and chimney swifts, which are almost always on the wing, through the majority of flying birds to such forms as the tinamous and rails which very seldom fly, to others, like the ostriches, that cannot fly at all, and finally to those queer fossil birds with no trace of wings what- ever. The flightless birds fall into three categories. First, birds large, powerful or swift enough to outfight or to outdistance any enemies, like the ostriches of Africa and Arabia, the rheas of South America, the emus of Australia, and the cassowaries of Queensland, New Guinea and the Moluccas. Second, sea birds frequenting regions where there are no beasts of prey, like the penguins, the great auk, and the flightless cormorants of the Commander Islands and the Galapagos. Third, land birds living in regions from which predaceous beasts are ab- sent, such as the dodo of Mauritius, the solitaire of Rodriguez, the kiwis of New Zealand, the flightless rails of Oceania, etc. Unless protected by most rigid laws such birds are doomed whenever man penetrates their territory; if large they and their eggs are eaten, and if small they soon become the victims of the dogs, cats and rats which man always carries with him in his wanderings. Thus the Commander Island flightless cormorant, the dodo and the solitaire, and the great auk have disappeared, and some of the other flightless birds are much reduced in numbers. The penguins of the southern hemisphere and the great auk have their wings so modified as to form long and powerful fins with which they swim, after the manner of sea-turtles, and 1160 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA contrary to the habit of most water birds which swim with their feet only, the wings being used but little if at all. The Figs. 251-261. Ant ‘‘guests,” a Lady-bird, and a Pangonid Fly. For explanation of the figures see pp. xviii, xix. rheas are peculiar in sometimes running with one wing raised like a sail, no one knows why. ‘The ostriches flap both wings in running more or less. In the emus, cassowaries and kiwis the wings are extremely small. The ducks, geese, swans and flamingos for part of the year are flightless, for when they moult all of their wing feathers are lost at the same time, not one by one as in the case of other birds, and they cannot fly until these grow out again. But as these birds are inhabitants of vast marshes, swamps, lakes, isolated reefs and islets, or remote regions where their enemies cannot follow them they do not suffer from the tempo- rary loss of flight. The bats vary much less in bodily form and in the shape of their wings than do the birds, and their flight is much more uniform. None of them soar, and none of them glide. Unlike ANIMAL FLIGHT tL] birds, most of them are all but helpless on the ground, though a few of the small ones can run almost as rapidly as mice. Certain of the smaller bats with long and very narrow wings fly so much like chimney swifts that they are easily mistaken for them, and the resemblance is heightened by their somewhat similar chatter. The largest bats, the flying-foxes and other fruit bats, fly like crows. Nearly all bats, though not rapid fliers, are wonderfully quick on the wing, twisting and turning and even doubling in their flight with an agility rarely seen in birds. For most of them the object of their flight is the same — to enable them to cap- ture insects. Some of them, all large slow-flying ones, eat fruit, one, also large and slow flying, catches fish, while a few others catch small birds or suck the blood of the larger animals. But the great majority feed on insects, and so the same style of flight is equally suitable for all and there is no need for them to specialize as the birds have done. Soaring and gliding would be of no advantage to the bats, for they must seek their food in those still and quiet regions where night insects fly the thickest; ability to turn quickly is their chief requirement. Most bats fly between 10 and 20 feet above the ground, high enough to avoid the bushy and_ herbaceous growths, and low enough to bring them within the region most frequented by night flying moths and beetles. They avoid the forests, but are abundant in clearings, in open glades, and on the borders of woodlands. The large fish eating bats fly just above the surface of the sea like petrels, coursing back and forth in their search for small fishes. In the day time the bats mostly retreat to the dark recesses of caves or hollow trees, or enter barns or houses, though some of them, like the flying- foxes, suspend themselves from the limbs of trees. Their enemies are few; they are sometimes caught by hawks and owls, and a few small hawks mainly feed upon them. In the past there lived numerous reptiles with bat-like wings called pterodactyls. These were of a great variety of sizes, from smaller than a sparrow to huge creatures with a spread 118 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA of twenty feet or more. Their long jaws were armed with formidable teeth, and they must have been very uncomfortable creatures to encounter. All of the remaining sorts of flying animals except the insects are gliders with the surface of the body increased in various ways so that they are able greatly to prolong their leaps by supporting themselves upon the air. Except for the fishes these are all climbing animals inhabiting the forests, and except for the reptiles they are active only at night. The reason for this is that in order to glide successfully they must attain a considerable height, and during a long glide they are practically helpless; they cannot dodge about and twist and turn as do the birds and bats, so that if they came out in daylight they would run great danger from the hawks. One of our very common animals, though one not often noticed because of its strictly nocturnal habits and on account of its small size, is the little flying squirrel. Flying squirrels live everywhere in northern forests, in North America, in Europe and in Asia, and in the East Indies some are found which are almost as large as cats. In the flying squirrels the skin along the sides of the body is extended outward in a broad flap stretching from the fore to the hind legs and supported by a long bone arising from the base of the hand, and the tail is flattened and very dense instead of rounded and loose as in the other squirrels. Supported by these strips of skin the flying squirrels are enabled to make enormous leaps from tree to tree, covering sometimes as much as one hundred feet; but on the ground they are clumsy and awkward. Our flying squirrels are so retiring and so small that in many of the places where they are commonest only a very few people know of their existence. They spend the day in holes in trees from which they emerge only after sunset. But they are rather sensitive, and they usually may be frightened out of their holes by tapping the trunk of the tree in which they live. However, it is one thing to get a flying squirrel out into the open, and quite another thing to catch him. He comes from his hole like a flash, climbs to the top of the tree, keeping the trunk between ANIMAL FLIGHT 119 himself and the observer, and launches out into the air. At first he falls diagonally and usually quite abruptly downward, his course gradually curving outward until his body is parallel with the ground, when he suddenly shoots upward and lands on the trunk of another tree, instantly disappearing around the trunk and mounting to the upper branches either to hide or to launch forth again. He is an expert in the art of keeping a tree between himself and his pursuer, and because of the differ- ence in color between the upper and under sides of his body he sometimes seems in the mottled shadows of the woods to disappear while in full flight. As he is not very much larger than a mouse he can hide very easily, and altogether he is quite an elusive creature. In the forests of the East Indies there lives the flying maki, or Galeopithecus, an animal very different from the flying squirrel, but resembling it in its gliding flight. The parachute like extensions of its skin are relatively larger than those of any other gliding animal, and it is able to “fly” for more than two hundred feet. New Guinea and Australia, especially New South Wales, are the home of the flying opossums, some of which are among the smallest of all known mammals measuring scarcely five and a half inches in length with the tail making up more than half of this. These little creatures are more expert on the wing than the flying squirrels or the flying maki, and are able to twist and turn to an astonishing degree. The great forests south of the Sahara are inhabited by the flying mouse, a little creature with the habits of the flying opossums. In the East Indian region are found the flying lizards. These are rather small lizards with a broad thin semicircular pro- jection like a broad fin stiffened by processes from the ribs on either side of the body by means of which they are enabled to glide through the air after the manner of the flying squirrels. Like the flying squirrels they glide obliquely downward until near their objective, when they turn and finish their flight with a short upward glide. 120 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA Some of the Malayan geckos or singing lizards have the body expanded somewhat after the fashion of the flying lizards, but the expansion is not stiffened. These have been supposed to fly, but Dr. Stejneger believes that the broadening is merely an adaptation for concealing them by obscuring their outline and that they cannot really fly. Certain climbing snakes of the Maylayan archipelago are able without any special adaptations of the body to glide through the air like a missile from one tree to another over a considerable distance. These flying snakes have the under side of the body marked with deep longitudinal grooves, and during the leap they hold themselves motionless like a rigid stick. In the forests of Sumatra, Borneo and Java there lives the flying frog, a sort of tree frog with especially elongate toes and fingers between which are greatly developed webs. In jumping from tree to tree this frog is said to spread its feet and thus to glide on the expanded membranes much after the man- ner of the flying squirrels, covering enormous distances. Most tree frogs are prodigious jumpers, and there seems to be some doubt whether this one is really helped much by its large feet. We all know that certain kinds of animals are only found in certain regions of the world, tigers only in Asia, giraffes and zebras only in Africa, kangaroos only in Australia, musk oxen only in the arctic regions, armadillos and sloths only in trop- ical America, etc. In the same way certain habits affecting many kinds of animals may be confined to particular localities, Terrestrial flying creatures other than insects, birds and bats are almost exclusively confined to the East Indian region, where we find flying squirrels, flying makis, flying lizards, flying snakes and flying frogs. Outside of the East Indies there are only three types of flying animals, the flying squirrels of Asia, Europe and North America, the flying opossums of Australia and New Guinea, and the flying mice of Africa, only one sort of flying creature in each place. Except for birds and bats and insects there are no flying animals of any kind in South Amer- ica. ANIMAL FLIGHT 12 But on the other hand the habit of hanging by the tail and of using the tail as an organ of prehension and of locomotion is almost exclusively confined to tropical America where it is characteristic of many animals in many very diverse groups, as monkeys, carnivorous animals, opossums, rats and porcupines. Why should this be so? Let us now briefly survey the insects, the most numerous by far of all the flying creatures. In their younger stages all insects are wingless, but when adult most insects can fly. Of all of them the tsetses and some of the bird flies fly the longest in proportion to their length of life. These flies are born as pupae or as larvae just ready to transform to pupae from which adults emerge. They do not feed as larvae or as pupae, and their adult winged existence is correspondingly prolonged. In many insects the flying stage is very short. For instance the seventeen year locust, or “‘periodical cicada” as the en- tomologists would prefer to have us call it, spends only about one nine hundredth part of its existence in the winged state, and it does not fly much even in that short time; while in some may-flies, which lack a mouth and therefore cannot feed, the flying period is less than one one thousandth part of their whole life. Thus if we were may-flies flying would be possible for not more than twenty-five days out of a normal life. In most insects the flying stage is rather short compared with the whole length of life, and in very few is it so much as a quarter of their whole existence. Also, in most flying insects both sexes fly equally well, as among the birds and bats, but in many the larger and heavier females are much less expert than the males, and in some the females cannot fly at all, the wings being much reduced in size or even absent altogether. Let us here repeat that the relative size of an insect’s wing is much greater than that of a bird’s wing. An insect is so light that it has no momentum, so that the wings must continually pull the body forward as well as lift it. Since there is no momentum the lifting and the pulling must be as nearly con- tinuous as possible, so that the wing motion of insects is 122 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA incomparably more rapid than that of birds. The common cabbage butterfly moves its wings at the rate of 540 strokes per minute; the sphingid moths at the rate of 4,320 beats per Fics. 262-272. Flies commonly found in houses. For explanations of the figures see p. xix. minute; the wasp at the rate of 6,600 beats per minute; the honey bee at the rate of 11,400 beats per minute; while the wings of the common house-fly vibrate at the rate of 19,800 beats per minute. The difference in the relative area of the wings between a mosquito and a stork may be appre- ciated when it is realized thateiied stork had wings pro- portionately as large as those of a mos- quito they would have an area of al- most twenty-eight and a half square yards, and an ex- panse of more than twenty-five feet. Of all the insects the larger dragon-flies, so common about the ponds and streams in which they live when young, are the swiftest on the wing. One sort of these (Austrophlebia) was timed by Dr. R. J. Till- yard, who found that it covered between 80 and go yards in ANIMAL FLIGHT 12:3 three seconds, which means that it was flying at the rate of nearly 60 miles an hour. Dr. Alexander Wetmore has recently determined that the great blue heron flies at the rate of 28 miles an hour, the red- tailed hawk at 22, the flicker at 25, and the raven at 24, so it is evident that the larger dragon-flies have little to fear from birds, though many of the smaller, weaker ones are eaten by them. Such birds as travel at a rate approaching that of the large dragon-flies often become victims of their speed. Being heavy, they cannot turn aside to avoid danger; put a net suddenly in front of them, and into it they go. The Esquimaux catch thousands of sea birds annually in this way by intercepting them as they fly along the shore. But the dragon-fly is different. Put a net in front of him and he instantly shoots off sideways, or up or down, or even doubles on his course. He is so light that he has no appreciable mo- mentum and therefore he can twist and turn about in a way quite impossible for any bird. There are many different kinds of dragon-flies; all of them eat other insects which they catch upon the wing. They have many different kinds of flight, darting, skimming or .soaring about in search of their more or less nimble victims. But the soaring, so-called, of a dragon-fly is a very different thing from the soaring of a bird; at first sight it seems to be the same, but if you watch closely you will see that the dragon-fly keeps his wings in motion almost all the time. Dragon-flies have various relatives, like ant-lions and lace- winged flies, which, strange to say, are slow and feeble fliers, they are awkward and clumsy in the air and they give you the impression that their wings are too big for them. The dragon- flies and their relatives are the only flying creatures which have two functional pairs of wings acting independently and placed one behind the other as in the original Langley aero- plane. The beetles, like the dragon-flies, have two independent pairs of wings, but the wings of the anterior pair are modified in such 124 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA a way that when the beetle is at rest they fit closely down over those of the posterior pair, which are folded up beneath them. In flight these anterior wings are held rigidly extended at Fics. 273-283. Various Flies. For explanations of the figures see pp. xix, xx. various angles, the hinder wings doing all the work. It is possible, however, that in some cases the anterior wings may serve the pur- pose of a pair of planes, assisting in keeping the insect in the air, though many beetles fly just as well if they are removed, and in ' some excellent fliers, like the devil’s coach horse, they are so small as to be quite functionless. Asa rule the flight of beetles is slow and clumsy, especially of the larger kinds which fly only at night and rather high so as to avoid the shrubs and bushes. Some, like the tiger beetles which in the spring we see running rapidly about on the bare ground in their hunt for smaller insects, are quite expert in turning and twisting in the air, while very many cannot fly at all. The grasshoppers, locusts, crickets and their allies have the fore wings stiff and tough, not used in flight, ANIMAL FLIGHT 125 and the hind wings membranous and closing like a fan instead of being folded on a hinge in the front margin as in the beetles. In most the flight is weak and rattly, and very many cannot fly at all. But some, like the migratory locusts, are strong fliers. Regarding the speed of grasshoppers I quote a letter from Mr. Andrew N. Caudell. “Tn early August of 1920 while studying economic species of grasshoppers in Centennial Valley, Montana, I had an excellent opportunity of observing the speed at which Cannula pellucida flew. By noting individuals that were flushed by the roadside by the automobile in which I was riding I chose ones that flew parallel with the machine, which was driven at the rate of 15 miles per hour. I found that under those conditions the rate of flight for this species is almost exactly 15 miles per hour. In long flights, especially with the wind, the rate may be much faster, as J. R. Parker has estimated the speed of migratory swarms to be 30 miles per hour. That appears to be too high an estimate, judging from my experience with the insects’ flight when flushed by the automobile. Mr. C. L. Corkins gives the rate of flight of Melanoplus atlantis as 20 miles per hour, the rate being determined by the same method I used with Can- nula, that is by observations made from an automobile moving at a given rate.” The flies properly so called, the house-fly, the blue-bottle, the horse-fly, the crane-fly, the black-fly, the mosquito, the gnat, the midge, the robber-fly, etc., have only two wings, the hinder pair being replaced by curious knobbed structures known as balancers or halteres which are apparently sensory and in some kinds possibly stridulating. It is interesting to note that while in the beetles the hind wings only are used for flight, in the flies these have completely lost their function as flying organs, the flight being effected entirely by those of the anterior pair. While a few flies are wingless, or have very small and useless wings, most of them are expert fliers. They can twist and turn and dodge and hover and dart quite as well as the dragon-flies, 126 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA and though most of them are not very speedy some, like the robber-flies which feed on other insects, are by no means slow. There are more different kinds of flight among the flies than among any other kinds of insects, rang- ing from the direct, swift and powerful flight of the robber and horse-flies and the twisting and dodging flight of the lesser house-fly to the dancing of the gnats and the hovering and darting of many syr- phidsand bombyliids. These last are com- monly seen suspended and apparently mo- tionless in the air a few feet above the ground over woodland paths; if startled they dodge away so rap- idly that frequéntly the eye cannot fol- low them. In most other in- sects the four wings Fics. 284-298. Various Flies. when extended func- For explanations of the figures see p. xx. tion as a single pair, the hinder edge of the fore wings being hooked to the front edge of the hind wings in various ways, as in the butterflies, moths, bees, wasps, etc. In some of the butterflies and moths the wings are enormous in proportion to the size of the body. ANIMAL FLIGHT W257 Many syrphid and bombyliid flies, some horse-flies or taban- ids, the hawk-moths and the humming-birds, all of which hover in the same way, are able to fly backwards slowly, re- versing the action of their wings. You can see a humming- bird do this as he goes from flower to flower. Very few insects have a definitely developed tail capable of being used for steering; some of the hawk-moths have move- able tufts of long hairs on the end of the body which may be used for this purpose, and one of the small parasitic wasps has a very remarkable tail of two thin plates crossing each other at right angles in the middle. Many butterflies, like the swallow-tails, and a number of moths, like our common luna and its various Asiatic relatives, have the hind wings produced into so-called tails, which may be very long; in some species only the males have them. In other insects, as in certain ant- lions, the fore wings may be normal, but the hind wings are very narrow and extremely long, and more or less twisted. In all flying animals the steering is done chiefly or entirely with the wings. Many bats are tailless, but they fly quite as well as the bats with tails. The long-tailed birds, like the cuckoos, forked-tailed, scissor-tailed and paradise flycatchers, long-tailed trogons, tailor-birds, emu-wrens, lyre-birds, turkeys, curassows, pheasants, etc., are relatively weak fliers, while all the birds remarkable for very long flights, like the plovers, curlews, godwits, ducks, geese and swans, or for long con- tinued gliding flight, like albatrosses and shearwaters, are short-tailed. Soaring birds to increase the lifting surface mostly have large broad tails, just as they have very broad wings. Most long-tailed birds are small; if large they are ground living; if good fliers the elongated feathers of the tail are reduced to two which are usually very narrow, the two outer- most in the swallows, terns, some flycatchers, some humming- birds, etc., the two central in the macaws, lories, tropic-birds, other flycatchers, other humming-birds, etc. Birds which pounce upon their prey or feed after the manner of bats, such as most hawks, falcons, kites and owls, goatsuckers, night- 128 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA hawks, whip-poor-wills, most flycatchers, etc., have large broad tails, and undoubtedly these assist them in turning abruptly downward, upward or sideways. Most creatures when flying make more or less noise, and many have special sounding organs connected with their wings, The bats all make a low swishing sound which is only audible for a short distance. The wings of most birds make a swishing sound which varies from the droning hum of the humming- birds to the loud dull rustling roar of the large vultures, swans, geese and ducks. These sounds are merely the result of the rapid passage of the wings through the air. In some ducks, on that account commonly called ‘whistlers,” the wings make a loud shrill whistling noise in flight which on a still day may be heard for a very considerable distance; this is due to the vibration set in motion by parts of certain of the wing feathers. The passage of most pigeons and doves and of some other rapid fliers through the air is also accompanied by a more or less distinct whistling. In addition to this pigeons and doves on rising suddenly from the ground usually make a clapping or rattling noise with their wings; but if not startled they often rise quietly. The flight of some birds, especially of the owls, is strangely silent, apparently so as not to interfere with the detection of the slight sounds made by the creatures they are seeking, by which means they find them. The droning of beetles and the buzzing and humming of flies, bees, wasps, mosquitos, etc., are known to everyone; some insects, like the large cockroaches in the tropics, fly with a loud rattling noise, and some, like certain butterflies and grass- hoppers, when on the wing make chirping or clicking sounds at will by means of a special mechanism connected with the wings. The flight of the large slow flying moths, like our common cecropia, polyphemus, promethea and luna, like that of the owls, is almost noiseless; and it is fortunate for them that this is so as otherwise they would soon disappear through extermination by small owls and by the bats. ANIMAL FLIGHT 129 Many flies can hum or buzz quite as well with the wings cut off as with them present, apparently through the action of the halteres which in this case appear to be wings transformed into singing organs. The song of the crickets, locusts, grasshoppers, katydids and similar insects is produced by the fore wings, parts of which are modified into very perfect sounding organs operated by the rubbing of the wings together, or by the long hind legs. The song of the cicadas and their allies, though it sounds much like that of the crickets and the locusts, at least like that of some of their tropical representatives, is not produced by the wings but by a special apparatus on the under side of the body. In some kinds the piercing shriek they give can only be compared to the whistle of a steam engine, and may easily be heard on a calm day four miles or more. The wings of insects are mere outgrowths from the body wall, quite unconnected with the legs. They are thus com- parable to the side extensions of the flying lizards and to the cobra’s hood. In many groups, especially in the moths and butterflies and in many flies, like moth-flies, they bear numer- ous broad scales somewhat resembling the feathers of a bird; in others they are often sparsely hairy like a bat’s wings. Except for bats all the flying mammals are tree-living climb- ing creatures, and in them the wing membrane is stretched between the legs. In the bats and birds the wings are an adaptation from special climbing organs, somewhat as suggested by the long arms of the spider monkeys. In the bats the flying surface is formed by broad areas of skin stretched between immensely elongate fingers and extending to the hind legs as in the an- cient flying reptiles and in all the other flying mammals. In the birds the flying surface is made up of long feathers which are outgrowths of the skin of the long front limbs. With their very long arms the monkeys and the lemurs climb with great rapidity through the forest trees. With their very long and suitably modified front limbs the bats and birds in much 130 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA the same way climb through the air. One bird, the hoactzin, when young climbs actively about the bushes with its fore limbs which, as in many other birds, have claws; when fully ' Fics. 299-312. Various Flies. for explanations of the figures see p. xx. grown it climbs through the air like any other bird. The wings of fly- ing fishes do not dif- fer from the corre- sponding fins of other fishes except in their greater size. Besides the ani- mals which fly by their own efforts there are many others which at some period of their exist- ence, usually when young, are wafted through the air with- out*the aid of flying organs just as the seeds of many plants are blown about. Chief among these are the flying spi- ders. Many differ- ent kinds of spiders have hit upon this means of getting from place to place. It is usually, though not invariably, the young spiders that do this, and the phenomenon is best observed on warm and com- paratively quiet autumn days when there is a good updraught of wind. The spiders climb to the summit of some object, such ANIMAL FLIGHT age as a stick, fence post, plant or stone, and release a fine thread or several of them, or sometimes a tangled mass of threads. When the pull of the ascending air upon the threads is strong enough the spider lets go his hold and floats away. One of the most sedentary of the spiders, living as a rule under stones, sticks and other objects, has adopted this means of getting from place to place, and it is also used by spiders of many other kinds. Occasionally spiders try to rise in an adverse wind, and then their threads instead of rising are blown onto the ground or onto the nearby plants sometimes forming enormous sheets of silk. These sheets of silk may later be lifted up and blown away, coming down in some distant place as a so-called gossa- mer shower. Many insects, especially the smaller ones like aphids, can fly just well enough to keep up in the air without making much of any progress. These form a connecting link between creatures that fly by their own efforts and those that are wafted by the winds from place to place. Many caterpillars, such as those of the gypsy moth, are, when very small, widely distributed by the strong winds of spring. When a pond dries up many of the small water creatures either condense themselves into the smallest possible space and surround themselves with a tough shell, or form highly resistant eggs and die. These capsules and eggs’are picked up by the wind and carried for long distances; in fact the air, even for hundreds of miles at sea, always contains besides mineral dust, particles representing the remains and the living spores and seeds of animals and plants. This is why any puddle of water, no matter where it is, on the ground, on a roof, or in hollows in the branches of tall trees, swarms with life almost immedi- ately after its appearance. Among the animals on land which do not fly, many of the larger ones have certain adaptations which enable them to use the resistance of the air for their protection. Leaping animals that live in tree tops, like the lemurs and the smaller monkeys 132 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA and most squirrels, very often have great outgrowths of long hairs which serve as brakes and serve to minimize the shock of landing. The so-called flying-monkey of the upper Amazons Fics. 313-321. Various Flies. For explanations of the figures see p. Xxi. looks when it leaps much like a flying squirrel, but it has no extended mem- branes on its sides, great tufts of long hair simulating these. The cobras when they strike raise themselves high above the ground on the tail and hinder portion of the body, and then fall for- ward. They do not shoot the head out suddenly as do our rattle-snakes. As they fall forward their broad hood acts as a wind brake and delays the body so that the danger from the fall is min- imized. In the frilled lizard of Australia, which runs very rapidly on its hind legs with the body more or less erect, the frills act as an air brake in the same way. We have now considered all the flying animals that live on land; but in addition there are some that live in water. ANIMAL FLIGHT 133 Chief among the aquatic flying creatures are the flying- fishes which are abundant in all the warmer seas. These fishes are one of the great wonders of the oceans. Leaving the water with a tremendous rush, the large side fins, which in some kinds reach a length equal to two-thirds the total body length or even more, are rigidly extended like the wings of an aero- plane and held in this position by powerful muscles. Supported by these great fins the fish is able to go for an astonishingly long distance, and in a strong wind to rise to a considerable height. When its momentum is expended it falls back into the water, or sometimes takes a fresh start by the vigorous action of its tail, the lower and larger part of which is dipped beneath the surface. The old question, which was created first, the hen or the egg, is replaced at sea by the equally old question, do flying- fishes really fly, or do they not? This question is always being discussed somewhere or other, and has been under continual discussion ever since man first sailed the seas. Every sailor knows that the wings of flying-fishes move, for he has seen them move and heard them hum; nothing but the fish could move them, and therefore he says that the fish does move them, and consequently flies after the manner of a_ bird. Others say the flying-fishes do not fly because they cannot; the muscles about the base of the wing-like fins, though large and strong, are merely used to keep the fins extended and serve no other purpose. The sailor retorts that this is pure theory and not to be considered in the light of the observed fact that the wings are actually moved. Both sides, the realists and the theorists, support their views with all sorts of argu- ments from the realms of marine biology, anatomy, and marine mythology, and the discussion finally comes to rest exactly where it started. No real sailor will admit that flying-fishes cannot fly, while no landsman will admit they can. In their contentions both are partly right. It has been shown that flying-fishes fly so far that their flight cannot be explained on the basis of the original impetus alone; no one 134 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA Fics. 322-356. Biting and parasitic Flies, and some maggots and pupae of Flies. For explanations of the figures see pp. xxi, XXii. ANIMAL FLIGHT 135 who has seen them at close quarters can doubt the movement of their fins. Therefore, while flying-fish are mainly gliders, their flight to some extent is aided by the movement of their fins. While flying-fishes jump from the water and glide away right and left before a steamer, a small boat does not disturb them in the least. If you are out in a small boat there may be thousands of them about you and you may never learn their presence. Through this peculiarity they are easy to secure. When the trade wind is blowing the surface of the sea is covered with little waves from which the sunlight is reflected so that a relatively small amount penetrates beneath the sur- face. While to us the ocean looks especially bright and spark- ling in a brisk breeze, beneath the surface it is dark and gloomy, for all the myriads of sparkles that catch our eye mean a corresponding amount of light rebounding from the surface instead of penetrating. It is under these conditions that the fishermen go forth to catch the flying-fish. For this they must go for a long distance, until the shore begins to disappear, as the flying-fish is preéminently a creature of the high seas and well knows the dangers that lurk in shallow water. Having arrived at what he considers a suitable location, the fisherman throws overboard some oily matter, usually, because most available, some half decayed flying-fishes from a previous catch. The oil spreads out and forms a relatively quiet area about the boat; the waves within this cease to sparkle, and the surface here takes on a dark and gloomy aspect. But looked at from below just the reverse occurs; the stilling of the wavelets results in the formation of a brilliantly lighted patch. Though previously no flying-fish at all were visible, the water about the boat now teems with them; they have come from all directions attracted by the bright spot on the surface. With frantic haste they are scooped into the boat with dip-nets — they do not attempt to fly — until suddenly they all vanish. Immediately several large hooks on strong lines are thrown out, each with a flying-fish as bait, and one or more is often seized 136 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA by a dolphin or a shark, whatever it was that frightened the flying-fish away. The oil has now become so scattered that its effect is lost, and the fisherman sails away to try their luck elsewhere. There are three little flying-fishes that live in fresh water, one, the most expert of them, in the rivers of western Africa, Fics. 368-3609. The Pine Saw-fly. Fics. 357-367. Fleas. For explanations of the figures see p. xxi. and the other two, which are only able to make short flights, in eastern South America. Flying-fishes are no new creation, for as far back as the Triassic seas there were at least three kinds, in some respects much better adapted for flight than are those of the present day. Brief mention must be made of those so-called flying-fishes ANIMAL FLIGHT 137 that do not fly, chief among which are the flying gurnards. In these fishes the side fins are enormous, and often very brightly colored, and look as if they could be used in flight. But these are sluggish bottom living fishes found only in shallow water near the shores and more or less like sculpins in their habits. They never leave the water except perhaps, and very rarely, in a short clumsy jump. The bat-fishes of the tropics, which are enormous rays, like many other fishes will sometimes leap above the surface; but they do not fly. In some parts of the ocean the passage of a steamer will frighten from the water objects which at first sight look like flying-fishes, of about the same size but thinner and more cylindrical When these things leave the water instead of scattering as does a company of flying-fishes they always keep together in a close formation maintaining the same distance from each other, and all the members of a company always drop into the sea at the same time. I first saw these off north- western Africa and it was the close formation that attracted my attention. Their flight is rather short, and it was difficult to catch them with the telescope; but when I did I found that they were cuttle-fish or squid, flying tail first, and easily distinguishable from the fishes by their large dark eyes at the wrong end. The only other flying thing at sea, except the birds, and sometimes bats on their migrations, is a small crustacean that lives in great numbers at the surface in some places. This creature often jumps clear of the water, and is said to prolong its leap by gliding through the air after the manner of a flying- squirrel. THE LARGEST LIVING CREATURES THREE hundred years ago the question, what are the largest creatures in the world? was very quickly answered. In those days the largest animal on the land was well known to be the dragon, while the largest animal in the sea was equally well known to be a sort of marine dragon called a sea-serpent. With the improvement in the implements used in fighting and in hunting game the fear of the larger creatures on the land declined and people gradually came to know them in their true proportions. Most dragons can be traced to ates sorts of huge reptiles which have been variously supplied with wings and other features by an unrestricted use of the imagination stimulated by intense fear. In southern Europe and in northern Africa the local dragons were enormous snakes of which the people stood in mortal terror. These have now been quite extinct for many centuries. In other regions, too, as in western China, large snakes, alone or embellished with features taken from other animals, formed the basis for the local dragons. The eastern Chinese dragon was based wholly or mainly upon the Chinese alligator which in former times was common in many Chinese rivers, though now it is confined to the lower portion of the Yang-tse where it is not common and never reaches a large size. Outside of China alligators are found only in the southern United States. In parts of the East Indies the local dragon was in part a huge ground lizard called a monitor, much feared by the natives in some islands, and apparently in part a giant snake. We shall not consider dragons further. It is enough to say that on analysis they all resolve themselves into these three 138 THE LARGEST LIVING CREATURES 139 elements, alligators, huge snakes, and giant lizards, usually in various combinations, all of which were vastly more numer- ous in the past than now and all of which were greatly feared. Huge creatures in the ocean when not recognized were com- monly assumed to be related to the terrible dragons on the land and hence endowed with reptilian features and designated as sea-serpents or sea-dragons. In the last twenty years we have heard less and less about the sea-serpent. The size of ships has rapidly increased, and steamers have gradually replaced the sailing craft. There has been no change in the creatures of the sea; but the change in our vantage point for observing them from the low and inse- cure wave-washed deck of a small sailing boat to the high, comfortable, secure, and relatively dry deck of a much larger steamer has removed the element of fear and hence dulled the imagination so that sailors are now able to study calmly and report correctly what they see. Most sea-serpents when examined carefully resolve them- selves into giant squid or cuttle-fish; but large sharks swim- ming in pairs one behind the other, whales, troops of dolphins and porpoises, and sometimes other creatures have also been described as sea-serpents. The element of size in any creature always incites our curi- osity. Mere size alone is always interesting, more especially in a creature larger than ourselves. But before we mention the giants of the animal kingdom let us state that the half way point between the largest of the land animals, the elephant, and the smallest, the most minute among the protozoans, is represented by a creature perhaps ‘a little smaller than the blow-fly, and furthermore that all the animals we have to fear the most, our most inveterate and our deadliest enemies, are smaller than the blow-fly. In certain groups, such as the birds, all the individuals of a given kind are of nearly the same size when fully grown, though the adult size of the two sexes differs more or less, the males being usually larger than the females, but smaller in such I40 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA birds as hawks and phalaropes. Some mammals, like the bats, show little variation, but most show more than do the birds. In the bears, the elephants, and some other types after the adult stage is reached the size keeps on increasing slowly until death so that the adults are very variable. In the turtles, lizards, snakes and crocodiles, as in all, or nearly all, the fishes, the size keeps on increasing long after the adult stage is reached, and giant individuals occur in all those forms in which size and increasing sluggishness do not invite destruction by interfering with the capture of the prey or by diminishing the power of defense. Some kinds of insects have a very definite adult size, like the swallow-tails among the butterflies, while in others the adult size is variable, as in our little aphid-eating butterfly. Other insects often vary very greatly in their size in different regions, while in very many the size, normally constant, may become much reduced by adverse conditions. The African elephant is the largest of land creatures, weigh- ing about 3 tons and reaching a height of 11 feet at the shoul- ders; but it is only one-tenth the size of the largest whales, or perhaps less. The Indian elephant and its relatives, which are really quite different animals, are not so large. By no means all African elephants are 11 feet in height, only the oldest males. The life of an elephant is rather long, for they have lived in captivity for as much as 130 years. While the African elephant is the bulkiest of animals, the giraffes are much the tallest; most giraffes are 15 or 16 feet in height, but one sort reaches 18 feet. The body is short, however, only 7 feet in length exclusive of the tail. Of the various bears much the largest are the great brown bears of the Alaskan peninsula and Kadiak Island which may run up as high as 18co pounds in weight. Of the cat tribe the largest is the tiger, reaching 11 feet from nose to tip of tail. The Bengal tiger is somewhat less, rarely so much as to feet long. The tiger, by the way, inhabits a vast extent of territory, THE LARGEST LIVING CREATURES I4I ranging from the Caspian Sea and the Euphrates river to the Okhotsk Sea and Amurland and southward throughout China, India and the Malay countries to some of the islands in the Malayan archipelago. The largest tigers are those in the Amur country, where it is extremely cold in winter. I saw a skin of one shot on Sakhalin which I was told was 12 feet long. The animal called “tigre” in Central and South America is the jaguar, while the African “tiger” is the leopard. The lion is of about the same size as the tiger, but usually slightly less. The longest measure 1o feet 6 inches, of which the tail occupies about 3 feet. Lionesses are about 1 foot shorter than their mates. Lions occur all over Africa, excepting in the regions where they have been exterminated, and locally eastward to north- western India. Within historic times they lived in south- eastern Europe west to the river Potamo and the Pindus mountains and south to the Gulf of Corinth, as well as through- out the greater part of northern and central Hindustan. The animal called “lion” in North and South America is the puma or cougar. By way of contrast to these animals the smallest mammal is a little shrew known from only three captured in the Dis- trict of Columbia and in Virginia, which has a body length of only 2 3/8 inches with 1 3/16 inches of tail. The ostrich is the largest of the birds, standing as much as 8 feet high and weighing 300 pounds. The true ostriches, of several different kinds, are confined to Africa and Arabia. The American ostriches are more properly called rheas, and the Australian, emus. Both the rheas and the emus are much smaller than the African birds. The wandering albatross of the windy southern oceans is the largest of the sea birds. Its body is but 4 feet long; the maximum extent of wing was found to be, from measurements taken on over 100 specimens, 11 feet 4 inches, not so great, therefore, as commonly recorded. All of the other kinds of albatrosses are smaller, though some not much so. ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA Cit seus Ree 37 375 Fics. 370-386. Vegetarian wasps. For explanations of the figures see p. xxil. THE LARGEST LIVING CREATURES 143 The condor of the Andes is the bulkiest of the flying birds on land, 4 feet in length with a maximum extent of 9 feet 9 inches, according to an unpublished record given me by Dr. Wetmore. One that Darwin shot measured 8 feet 6 inches in expanse, and the bird probably never reaches quite ro feet in spite of the numerous reports exceeding this. The Californian condor of our own western mountains has just about the same expanse of wing as the South American condor, but it is a somewhat lighter and more slender bird. Compare these birds with Princess Helen’s hummingbird of Cuba, the smallest of the birds, 2 9/16 inches in total length, or without the bill and tail 1 1/4 inches. It is very difficult to get accurate information on the largest reptiles, since these are rarely measured carefully, and there is much temptation to exaggeration. There are many references to snakes, pythons and_ boas, of between 40 and 50 feet in length which have been killed in the Malay region, Sumatra, Borneo and the Philippines, and also in Africa. The largest pythons as we know them now are from 18 to 20, occasionally even somewhat over 30, feet in length, though such enormous snakes are very rare. But there is no reason to believe that in the past when such huge snakes were not molested they did not grow, at least sometimes, to more than 4o feet. The maximum accurate measurement of a snake is of a South American anaconda that reached 14 meters, or nearly 47 feet, while another measured 13 meters, or over 43, so I am informed by Dr. Afranio do Amaral. These giants were from the unin- habited region north of the Matto Grosso; elsewhere in Brazil they are rarely half as large. Huge individuals have been men- tioned from the Guianas; one 36 feet in length was killed in Berbice which is said now to be in the Museum at the Hague. The bulkiest of the poisonous snakes is the diamond backed rattler of our southern states, which reaches 8 feet 8 inches — stretched skins are of course much longer. One of the cobras is of greater length, up to 16 feet, but it is very slender. 144 ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA Crocodiles reach a length of about 30 feet. One of these monsters 29 feet long and 11 feet in girth was killed many years ago in the Philippines where it apparently had been a local terror for many years. Large Nile crocodiles are usually about 15 feet in length, but sometimes much larger. Sir Samuel Baker, writing in 1875, said of the crocodiles at Gon- dokoro on the upper Nile near the Albert Nyanza that he frequently saw them upwards of 18 feet in length, and that there can be little doubt that they sometimes exceed 20. One of the American crocodiles, much like the crocodile of the Nile, is found in the extreme south of Florida where it reaches more than 14 feet in length and is not rarely Io or 12. This crocodile is peculiar in living mainly in salt water marshes. It is much more active and dangerous than the alligator from which it is easily distinguished by its narrow pointed snout. The alligator in the southern states is known to reach 18 feet in length, possibly even 20, though in these days it rarely exceeds 12. The wicked looking gavial of the Ganges reaches a length of 17 feet. There are much larger records, up to 30 feet or more, but I suspect that these refer to crocodiles. The largest of the lizards is a monitor from the little island of Comodo between Flores and Sumbava in the East Indies, which is known to reach 13 feet, and is said sometimes to be much larger, 23 feet or even more. The largest American lizards are the iguanas, about 5 feet long. Of the sea turtles the largest is the leather back which is sometimes taken on the New England coast, though its home is in the tropics. This reaches a length of about 7 feet and a weight of about 900 pounds. The loggerhead, another of the sea turtles, is of about the same weight as its maximum. At the present day large individuals of both of these are very rare. On many isolated islands far from land, like the Galapagos Islands, Aldabra, Mauritius, Bourbon and others, there live, or have lived, gigantic land tortoises. In the Galapagos Islands THE LARGEST LIVING CREATURES 145 these were especially abundant, inhabiting nearly all the islands and of a more or less different type on each. Ships used to call here and take aboard these tortoises for meat, in the early days sometimes as many as 700 at one time. In the early eighteen hundreds the ship’s company of a frigate in one day brought down 200 tortoises to the beach. Even as late as Darwin’s visit in 1835 the staple article of food among the inhabitants of Charles Island consisted of these large tortoises. Some of these tortoises grew to an immense size. Mr. Law- son, a resident Englishman, told Darwin he had seen several so large that it required six or eight men to lift them from the ground, and that some had afforded as much as 200 pounds of meat. The old males are the largest, and are easily distin- guished from the females by the longer tail. One of the large tortoises from Aldabra on being weighed was found to reach 870 pounds; but this was not one of the largest size. The largest of the pond or river turtles is the alligator snapper of the Mississippi which reaches 140 pounds in weight, the shell or carapace being about 3 feet long. Our common snapper is much smaller, though reaching 70 pounds or more. The largest frog comes from the Cameroons, on the West Coast of Africa. It is a rather stout short-legged frog with the body 10 inches or more in length and the hind legs as long again, so that when stretched out the creature measures about 2 feet. There are some other frogs nearly as large. The largest salamander is the giant salamander of eastern Asia and Japan which reaches about 5 feet. We have a very similar but much smaller one with us which is usually about 18 inches, but occasionally as much as 2 feet long. Of the fishes in fresh water the largest is that giant sturgeon of southeastern Europe called the “huso” which reaches 24 feet in length with a weight of 2000 pounds, though at the present day individuals weighing as much as 1200 pounds are rare. This fish has been found to attain an age of between 200 and 300 years. << & isp =) a