Part 3 (1/2)
In my opening vignette I have indicated two other door-step neighbors which bore my industrious wasps company in their arena of one square yard. To the left, surrounding a gra.s.s stem, will be seen an object which is unpleasantly familiar to most country folks--that salivary ma.s.s variously known by the libellous names of ”snake-spit,” ”cow-spit,”
”cuckoo-spit,” ”toad-spit,” and ”sheep-spit,” or the inelegant though expressive subst.i.tute of ”gobs.” The foam-bath pavilion of the ”spume-bearer,” with his glittering, bubbly domicile of suds, is certainly familiar to most of my readers; but comparatively few, I find, have cared to investigate the mysterious ma.s.s, or to learn the ident.i.ty of the proprietor of the foamy lavatory.
The common name of ”cow-spit,” with the implied indignity to our ”rural divinity,” becomes singularly ludicrous when we observe not only the frequent generous display of the suds samples, thousands upon thousands in a single small meadow, but the further fact that each ma.s.s is so exactly landed upon the central stalk of gra.s.s or other plant--”spitted”
through its centre, as it were. The true expectorator is within, laved in his own home-made suds. If we care to blow or sc.r.a.pe off the bubbles, we readily disclose him--- a green speckled bug, about a third of an inch in length in larger specimens, with prominent black eyes, and blunt, wedge-shaped body.
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In the appended sketch I have indicated two views of him, back and profile, creeping upon a gra.s.s stalk. A glance at the insect tells the entomologist just where to place him, as he is plainly allied to the cicadae, and thus belongs to the order _Hemiptera_, or family of ”bugs,”
which implies, among other things, that the insect possesses a ”beak for sucking.” To what extent this tiny soaker is possessed of such a beak may be inferred from the amount of moisture with which he manages to inundate himself, which has all been withdrawn from the stem upon which he has fastened himself, and finally exuded from the pores of his body.
This is the spume-bearer, _Aprophora_, in his first or larval estate, which continues for a few weeks only. Erelong he will graduate from these ignominious surroundings, and we shall see quite another sort of creature--an agile, pretty atom, one of which I have indicated in flight, its upper wings being often brilliantly colored, and re-enforced by a pair of hind feet which emulate those of the flea in their powers of jumping, which agility has won the insect the popular name of ”froghopper.” They abound in the late summer meadow, and hundreds of them may be captured by a few sweeps of a b.u.t.terfly-net among the gra.s.s.
My other remaining claimant for notice, shown upon the plant at the right margin of page 60, is a modest and inconspicuous individual, and might readily escape attention, save that a more intent observer might possibly wonder at the queer little tubular pinkish blossoms upon the plant--a rush--while a keen-eyed botanist would instantly challenge the right of a _juncus_ to such a tubular blossom at all, especially at seed-time, and thus investigate. But the entomologist will probably cla.s.sify this peculiar blossom at a glance, from its family resemblance to other specimens with which he is familiar. He will know, for instance, that this is a sort of peripatetic or nomadic blossom that will travel about on the plant, with which its open end will always remain in close contact. Many of the individuals are seen apparently growing upright out of the rounded seed-pod of the rush; and when the pink or speckled tube finally concludes to take up its travels, a clean round hole marks the spot of its tarrying, and an empty globular sh.e.l.l tells the secret of this brief attachment.
For this petal-like tube, so commonly to be seen upon the little rush of our paths, is, in truth, a tiny silken case enclosing the body of a small larva--a diminutive psychid, or sack-bearer, which I have not chanced to see described. Only the head and six prolegs of the occupant ever emerge from its case. Dragging its house along upon the plant, it attaches the open mouth of the sack close to the green seed-pod, after which the sh.e.l.l is gnawed through at the point of contact, and the young seeds devoured at pleasure, when a new journey is made to the next capsule, and thus until the maturity of the larva. At this time the case is about half an inch in length. It is now firmly attached to the plant. The opening is completely spun over with silk, and the case becomes a coc.o.o.n for the winter; and a few of these September coc.o.o.ns are well worth gathering, if only to see the queer little moth which will emerge from them the following spring.
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_A QUEER LITTLE FAMILY ON THE BITTERSWEET_
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In a recent half-hour's relaxation, while comfortably stretched in my hammock upon the porch of my country studio, I was surprised with a singular entertainment. I soon found myself most studiously engaged.
Entwining the corner post of the piazza, and extending for some distance along the eaves, a luxuriant vine of bittersweet had made itself at home. The currant-like cl.u.s.ters of green fruits, hanging in pendent cl.u.s.ters here and there, were now nearly mature, and were taking on their golden hue, and the long, free shoots of tender growth were reaching out for conquest on right and left in all manner of graceful curves and spirals. Through an opening in this shadowy foliage came a glimpse of the hill-side slope across the valley upon whose verge my studio is perched, and as my eye penetrated this pretty vista it was intercepted by what appeared to be a shadowed portion of a rose branch crossing the opening and mingling with the bittersweet stems. In my idle mood I had for some moments so accepted it without a thought, and would doubtless have left the spot with this impression had I not chanced to notice that this stem, so beset with conspicuous thorns, was not consistent in its foliage. My suspicions aroused, I suddenly realized that my th.o.r.n.y stem was in truth merely a bittersweet branch in masquerade, and that I had been ”fooled” by a sly midget who had been an old-time acquaintance of my boyhood, but whom I had long neglected.
Every one knows the climbing-bittersweet, or ”waxwork” (_Celastrus scandens_), with its bright berries hanging in cl.u.s.ters in the autumn copses, each yellow berry having now burst open in thin sections and exposed the scarlet-coated seeds. Almost any good-sized vine, if examined early in the months of July and August, will show us the thorns, and more sparingly until October, and queer thorns they are, indeed! Here an isolated one, there two or three together, or perhaps a dozen in a quaint family circle around the stem, their curved points all, no matter how far separated, inclined in the same direction, as thorns properly should be. Let us gently invade the little colony with our finger-tip. Touch one never so gently and it instantly disappears.
Was ever thorn so deciduous? And now observe its fellows. Here one slowly glides up the stem; another in the opposite direction; another sideways. In a moment more the whole family have entirely disappeared, as if by hocus-pocus, until we discover, by a change of our point of view, that they have all congregated on the opposite side of the stem, with an agility which would have done credit to the proverbial gray squirrel.
This animated thorn is about a quarter of an inch long, and dark brown in color, with two yellowish spots on the edge of its back.
Nor is this all the witchery of this bittersweet thorn. It is well worth our further careful study. Seen collectively, the th.o.r.n.y rose branch is instantly suggested, but occasionally, when we observe a single isolated specimen, especially in the month of July, he will certainly masquerade in an entirely new guise. Look! quick. Turn your magnifier hither on this green shoot. No thorn this. Is it not rather a whole covey of quail, mother and young creeping along the vine? Who would ever have thought of a thorn! Turning now to our original group, how perfectly do they take the hint, for are they not a family of tiny birds with long necks and swelling b.r.e.a.s.t.s and drooping tails, verily like an autumn brood of ”Bob Whites”?
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But the little harlequin is as wary a bird as he was a thorn! No sooner do we touch his head with our finger than with an audible ”click” he is off on a most agile jump, which he extends with buzzing wings, and is even now perhaps aping a thorn among a little group of his fellows somewhere among the larger bittersweet branches.
It is only as we capture one of the little protean acrobats between our finger-tips and examine him with a magnifier that we can really make ”head or tail” of his queer anatomy. Even thus enlarged it is difficult to get entirely rid of the idea of a bird. I have shown a group of the insects in various att.i.tudes, the position of the eyes alone serving as a starting-point for our comprehension of his singular make-up. The tall neck-like or thorn-like prominence is then seen to be a mere elongated helmet, which is prolonged into a steep angle behind, so as to cover the back of the creature like a peaked roof, a feature from which the scientific name of this particular group of insects is derived, _Membracis_, meaning sharp-edged, the sides of the slope being covered by the close-fitting wings, which, though apparently compact with the body of the insect, are nevertheless always available for instant and most agile flight. We now discover two pairs of stout legs just beneath the edge of the wings, a third more slender pair being concealed behind, ready for immediate use in a.s.sociation with these buzzing wings when the whim of the midget prompts it to leap.
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This insect is the tree-hopper, and is but one of many equally curious and mimetic species to be found among the smaller branches of various trees and shrubs.
Our largest membracis is to be seen--with difficulty--on the terminal twigs of the locust-tree, its outlines so exactly imitating the th.o.r.n.y growths of the branch as to escape detection even by the closest scrutiny. Another remarkable species is a protege of the oak, so closely simulating the warty bark of the smaller branches upon which it is found that our eyes may rest upon it repeatedly without recognizing it.
The life history of these singular insects is quite similar, and is soon told. The membracis belongs to the tribe of ”Bugs,” Hemiptera, which implies that it possesses a beak instead of jaws, by which it sucks the sap of plants, precisely like the aphis, or plant-louse. This tiny beak we can readily distinguish bent beneath the body of our bittersweet hopper. Inserting it deep into the succulent bark, the parasite remains for hours as motionless as the thorn it imitates, the lower outline of its body hugging close against the bark. The curious suggestion of the thorn is produced not only by the outline, but by the curious fact that the hopper never sits _across_ the twig, but always in the direction of its length; and, what is more, the projecting point of the thorax is always directed towards the end of the branch, or direction of growth.