Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 November 1908 — INSECTS THAT ARE TIPPLERS. [ARTICLE]

INSECTS THAT ARE TIPPLERS.

Flowers and Blossoms That Have ar, Intoxicating Effect on Flies. It is not very obvious, from tinhuman point of view, why the ivshould be called the plant of Baccnuf since no wine is made from its berries. Entomologists, however, have found that its flowers make a veritable Bacchanalian festival for a number of insects. They are wont to salty forth at night wisi lanterns to capture the intoxicated moths that crow : around the greenish blossoms. Wher' he willow Is in bloom they find similar scene of dissipation around its yellow catkins. The tippling insect may be used to point a moral by the temperance lecturer, says the London Globe, for rum not infrequently leads to its ruin. A distinguished entomologist alter giving a recipe for the mixture for sugaring trees for moths—which ncluded beer said: “Add sonic Jamaica rum just before using; , it is the rum which attracts them.” After sipping this mixture'the moths and butterflies fall from the tree intoxicated. If the entomologist Is not there to capture them by and by tney recover and get up again for another dip. There Is a fly so addicted to wine that I innaeus named it the cellar fly, which appellation Kirby' changed to the more appropriate one of th< cellar wine drinker. .This latter distinguished entomologist writes of. it. thus: “The larva of this little fly whose economy, as I can witness fror. my own observations, disdains to feed on anything but wine or beer, which like Boniface in the play it may be said both to eat °nd drink, though, unlike its toping counterpart indifferent to the age of tne liquor, which, whether sweet or sour, is equally acceptable.” Kirby, who writes the above, does not, nevertheless, exonerate" adult flies from a partiality for the cup that (Sheers. “1 nat active little fly,’’ he writes, “now an unbidden guest at ; our table, whose delicate palate sei ects your choicest viands, one while extending his proboscis to the margin of a drop of wine and then gayly flying to take a more Soliu repast from a pear or a peach.” And ther? is another Insect —a moth—'which also Ijves„ the cellar and the wine bottle But, strange to sa?’, it taxes its liquor as a mere flavoring to the cork on which it really feeds; the larva, that is to say. pastures on the corks or wine bottles, sometimes causing the wine to run out. The mo a belongs to that troublesome fam'ty which works such destruction in clothes and turs.