Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 June 1875 — Habits of Insects. [ARTICLE]

Habits of Insects.

At this season of the year, when animal life, as well as vegetable, is soon to reach the climax of vitality, it may be interesting and useful to inquire into somf departments of natural Jiistory that constantly fall under the eye of every observer. In beginning with some allusions to the habits of insects we shall be guided, in the main, by Kirby and Spence, among the highest authorities in entomology, not hesitating to embody facts from other sources which may add interest or instruction to the subject. We propose to confine ourselves at present to the consideration of insects, including under that title also the arachnides, or spiders. We shall find on consideration that, diminutive as are, in general, the individuals of this family, yet by their number and variety they become as much or more important to mapkihd, both as instruments of good ana evil, than many of the vertebral families. The insects may be considered in relation to man as instruments of good and evil; they inflict injuries either directly or indirectly as they confer benefits. Insects are in the* first place injurious and might be much more so. We are apt to disregard, or, when our notice is attracted to the subject, to regard with contempt, the power of these "puny people." But nothing is more certain than that man would be reduced to the last extremity of wretchedness and the whole earth rendered uninhabitable either by him or the quadrupeds if it were not for certain checks which the Deity In His mercy has caused to restrain the increasing numbers and destructive ravages of these minute individuals, and He has only to suspend the operation of these to bring ravage, pestilence and famine upon the earth. “The locust, the cankerworm and the caterpillar and the palmer worm are His great armies,” to use the language of Scripture, which lie sends among us. Nothing in nature. indeed, that possesses or has possessed animal or vegetable life is safe from the inroads of insects. Neither the cunning of the fox, the swiftness of the horse, of the buffalo, the fierceness of thSffion nor the armor of the rhinoceros, nor the unwieldy bulk and sagacity of the elephant, not even the imperial front of him that wears the laurel crown, can secure them from the power of the despised beings. The air will not protect the birds nor the waters cover the fish; they are all hunted to their utmost recesses and preyed upon by the insect. The vegetable kingdom is equally exposed, from the oak that has reigned for centuries the monarch of the woods to the microscopic lichen that shelters itself in a crevice of his bark; all are subject to the insect. The injuries of insects aflect either our persons or our property; they injure our persons either by their attempts to make us their food or to revenge or prevent injuries received or feared from us, and they incommode us also very often without either of these purposes; of the first class, or those which make us- their food, a large class are of a character of which it will not be desirable to take much notice on this occasion, as the customs of society here render the whole subject so revolting that it is as well not to expose our science to too close a connection with unpleasant associations. In regard to one set of these, however, many foreign nations are very far from regarding them as such disgraceful associates as we or our cousins of England do. Nay, we are told that the objection is not universal in the latter country. An amusing writer tells us of an observation of an old lady to a friend of his: “ Dear Miss," said she, “ don’t you like fleas? Well, I think they are the prettiest, merry thingsin the world..*, I never saw a dull flea in my life.” There would be tormentors enough, however, without these, and, of those that would remain, one of the most formidable tribes is the family of gnats, liosquitoes, etc. These in summer time are no trifling evils. They follow us to all our haunts, intrude into our most secret retirement, assail us in the city and in the country, in the house and in the field, in the sun and in the shade. They pursue us even to our pillows, and either keep us awake by the ceaseless hum of their droning pipe, and their incessant endeavors to fix themselves upon our face or some uncovered part ot our body, or if, in spite of them, we fall asleep, awaken us by the acute pain which attends the insertion of—their stings. Though these in temperate climates are on the whole rather vexatious than seriously injurious, they occasionally become seriously so from their numbers. We are informed that in the year 1786 they were so numerous in Salisbury, in England, that vast columns of them were seen to rise into the air from the cathedral, which at a distance resembled columns of smoke, so that the cathedral was at first supposed to be on fire. And in the year 1766, in the month of August, they appeared iu such incredible numbers as to resemble a black cloud, which almost totally intercepted the rays of the sun. One day, a little before sunset, six columns of them were observed to ascend from the boughs of an apple tree, some in a perpendicular and others in an oblique direction, to the height of fifty or sixty feet. Their bite was so envenomed that it was attended with severe and even dangerous inflammation, and one when killed often eontaified as much blood as would cover three or four square inches of wall. They are Vastly worse, however, in warm plimates. Some of them, as we are told by travelers, are able to pierce through a man’s boot, and, though this may be dubious, yet it is pretty clear that no material of clothing, short of leather, is a protection. Dr. Clark in his “TravelsinCrimTartarv”informs us thatjefie bodies of himself and his companions, in spite of gloves, clothes and handkerchiefs, were rendered one entire wound, and the consequent excessive irritation excited a Considerable degree of fever. In a most sultry night, exhausted by fatigue, pain and heat, he sought shelter in his carriage, and, though almost suffocated, could not open a window for fear of the mosquitoes. Swarms neveifheless found their way into his hiding-place and, hi spite of the handkerchief with which he had bound up his head, filled his mouth, nostrils and ears. In the midst of his torment he succeeded in lighting a lamp, which was, however, extinguished. in a moment by such a prodigious number of those insects that their bodies actually filled the glass chimney and formed a large conical heap oypr the burner. Travelers and mariners give a similar account of the torments, inflicted by’ these little demons. One traveler in Africa complains that after a fifty miles’journey they would not suffer him to rest, and ‘that his face and hands appeared, from their bites, as if he was infected with Hie

small-pox in its worst stage. And another in Armenia, as a proof of the dreadful state to which he and his companions were reduced by them, mentions that their heads were thrust into holes in the earth and their necks wrapped round with their hammocks. They have routed armies. Sapor, King of Persia, was compelled, .as we are told, to raise the siege of a Greek city by the gnats which attacked and entirely discomfited his elephants and beasts of burden. They have laid waste cities, whose inhabitants have been obliged to desert them by the insufferable tofments of these creatures; and, like conquerors of the human race, have given names to ‘various portions of the earth, for we have Mosquito bays, towns, countries and shores. In the books of travels in Africa by Denham and Clapperton, we perceive the superiority of these insects over the larger animais, and indeed from the accounts.of most other travelers, beside our own experience. The lion, tiger, and even the enormous elephant learn to fear the resources and fly against the power of man—against all these he can defend himself, but the little animals of whom we are speaking defy alike his ingenuity and his strength, and, though individually contemptible, as a host they are equally invincible and dreadful. — Massachusetts Ploughman.