Part 7

Here beneath our close leaf is an opportunity which we must not permit to pass. Even as we take another cautious peep we discover that a cobwebby hair has grown from the surface of the leaf, with its tiny knob at the summit; and now another is growing beside it, following the pointed rising tip of the insect's slender tail. It has now reached a half-inch in length, when the little knob suddenly appears and is firmly glued to the summit of the hair. Another and another are added to the group, until a complete tuft or fringe hangs beneath the leaf. Of course the reader will have now guessed the secret of the episode--that this is a mother lace-wing fly thinking only of her future brood. But what a unique method she employs in egg-laying! What seeming reckless consideration for her offspring! Fancy awakening from one's crib only to find one's self on the top of a telegraph pole, or clinging for dear life at the end of a dangling rope or rod! Yet such is the initial experience of the baby lace-wing flies as they emerge from their filmy, iridescent cradles, whose very first experience in life must needs be a daring feat of acrobatics. But hunger is a mighty incentive to work and daring deeds, and the lace-wing infant is born hungry, grows hungrier with each moment of its subsequent life, and is apparently the more famished in proportion to its gluttony, fully realizing the comment of Josh Billings upon the voracious billy-goat, "All it eats seems tew go tew apetight."

We may be sure that this gauzy mother-fly, with her appetizing reminiscences of her former epicurean days, has placed her progeny in a land of plenty--a land almost literally of "milk and honey." For wherever we find this delicate fringe of pale green eggs we may confidently look also for its counterpart--a swarm of aphides, or plant-lice, somewhere in the neighborhood, occasionally clustering about the very stalks of the eggs, and shedding their copious "honey-dew" for the benefit of the caressing ants, which sip at their upraised, flowing pipes. Ah! if these happy ants only realized the menace of this slender fringe--who knows but that they may?--how quickly they were to be cut down by the destroying teeth!

Here, for instance, a wee babe just out of the egg slides down the stalk, and falls plump among a whole family of the aphides. In a twinkling a young aphis larger than himself is impaled on his sharp teeth and its body sucked dry. But this is merely an appetizer; he has only to extend his jaws on right or left to secure another similar morsel, which is emptied in the same manner, and his first meal would only seem to be limited by the number of victims available, so insatiate is his craving. In a short time he must needs move up farther along the twig, and thus his swath extends, until within an incredibly short space of time the entire swarm of aphides has disappeared, leaving the field occupied alone by the larva, who has perhaps now acquired his full growth by their absorption--a full-fledged "aphis lion," as he is called. He is now about a half-inch in length, a long pointed oval in outline, the sides of its body beset with bristly warts, and its head armed with two long incurved teeth. But these teeth are not like ordinary teeth, constructed for "chewing" or biting, but rather for imbibing, and suggest the two straws in the glass of the convivialist; being tubular, their open points are imbedded within the juicy body of the aphis, which is soon emptied to the last drop.

The aphides are always with us. Where is the lover of the rose-garden who is not painfully familiar with the pests, their pale green swarms completely encircling the tender shoots, and shedding their sticky, shining "honey-dew" everywhere like a varnish upon the leaves and flowers beneath. Hardly a plant or tree escapes their parasitic attacks in one form or another, where, with their beaks imbedded in the tender bark, they suck the sap, and literally overflow with the bounty which they thus absorb and convert into "honey-dew."

We need not go very far in our country walk to discover our aphides encircling the stems of weed and shrub, and it is well the next time we encounter them to observe them more closely. They would indeed appear at first glance to be having things entirely their own way. Even here in my city back yard, for instance, upon my growing chrysanthemums, as I sit at the back windows some twenty feet distant, I can distinctly see their brown, disfiguring masses completely inclosing the under tips of nearly all the branches.

Again and again have I shaken or brushed them off only to see them increase and multiply; and, on the other hand, on more than one occasion have I seen an entire swarm vanish from a particular twig which I knew was infested only a day or two previous. Why? It was not that the aphides had completed their growth and died or fled. A careful examination among the young leaves or along the stem in their neighborhood showed the author of the havoc, a fat aphis lion, perhaps, in the act of sucking the contents of its last victim, or, perhaps, having completed his growth, contemplating the commencement of his cocoon in which to abide during the winter.

Almost any swarm of aphides will show us this fat wolf in the fold, and if not this particular one, another--perhaps two others--quite as voracious, one of them the fat larva of the lady-bug, and the other a tapering-looking grub with needle beak and insatiable hunger, the larva of the gold-banded flower-fly.

The Perfumed Beetle

Surprises await us at every turn in wood and field if our senses are sufficiently alert and responsive. I well remember the singular revelation which rewarded my curiosity upon a certain occasion in my boyhood, an incident which now seems trivial enough, but which marked a rare day in my youthful entomological education, and which, as it relates to an insect of exceptional peculiarity, I may here recall.

I was returning homeward after a successful day of hide-and-seek with the caterpillars and butterflies and beetles, my well-stored collecting-box being filled with squirming and creeping specimens, and my hat brim adorned with a swarm of Idalias, Archippus, yellow swallow-tails, and other butterflies--the butterfly-net on this particular occasion being rendered further useless by the occupancy of a big red adder which I wished to preserve "alive and sissin'." I had taken a short cut through the woods, and had paused to rest on a well-known mossy rock. The welcome odors of the woods, the mould, the dank moss, and the spice-bush lingered about me; and I well remember the occasional whiff from the fragrant pyrolas somewhere in my neighborhood, though unseen. It was a very warm day in the middle of July, and even the busiest efforts of millions of cool, fluttering leaves of the shadowed woods had barely tempered the languid breeze, laden as it was with the reminders of the glaring hay-field just outside its borders.

Among all the various odorous waftings that came to me, I caught a whiff which was entirely new, and which in its suggestions seemed strangely out of place here in the woods. What was it like? It certainly reminded me of _something_ with which my nostril was familiar, but which I could not now identify. I only knew that it had no place here in the woods, and even as I sought to take one extra full sniff for further analysis, it was gone. After the lapse of a few moments, however, its faint suggestion returned, and, increasing moment by moment, at length seemed to tincture the air like incense. It was now so strong as to be pungent, and my wits were keyed to their utmost, until at length a vision of a banana peel seemed to hover against the dried leaves. "Some one has been eating a banana here, and thrown the peel away," thought I. But no, this is hardly the odor of banana, either; it is more like pineapple. Yes, it _is_ pineapple. No, that is not quite it either; it is strawberry. "Nonsense. Strawberry season was passed two weeks ago." And while I am debating the matter the spice-bush at my elbow has sent out a pungent challenge which has chased the enchantment all away. The next time it returns in a new guise, and the only suggestion which it brings is a reminder of my mother's red leather travelling-bag. Russia-leather? Yes, that is it--Russia-leather. No. Russia-leather, pineapple, strawberry, and banana peel mixed.

Whatever it was and wherever it came from I now determined to discover. The direction of the breeze was soon ascertained, and I started out to follow up the scent like a hound. I had walked about ten feet, with my nose tingling, when the odor suddenly left me. I paused at a large maple-tree, and awaited the trail. It came. This time it proved to be a hot scent, in truth. I needed only to follow my nose around the trunk of the tree at my elbow to be brought face to face with my game. It was no banana peel, nor pineapple, nor Russia-leather bag, but only a company of beetles sipping in the sun. A banquet of beetles! There were ten or a dozen of them, congregated about a hole in the maple trunk, all sipping at a furrow in the bark from which sap was oozing. At my approach they started to conceal themselves in the hole, but were most of them captured. They were about an inch in length, and of a purplish-brown color, and glistened like bronze.

I took my prizes home, and determined to announce my great discovery to the world in an early issue of some scientific paper, fully assured that I had made a "great find." Before accomplishing this purpose, however, I thought I would consult my "oracle," "Harris's Insects Injurious to Vegetation"--a most beautiful and valuable entomological work, by-the-way, which should be in every boy's library. There, on page forty-two, behold my odorous specimen, true to life! And what does Harris say about him? "They are nocturnal insects, and conceal themselves through the day in the crevices and hollows of trees, where they feed upon the sap that flows from the bark. They have the odor of Russia-leather, and give this out so powerfully that their presence can be detected by the scent alone at the distance of two or three yards from the place of their retreat. This strong smell suggested the name Osmoderma, 'scented skin,' given to these beetles by the French naturalists."

"Nocturnal" they may be, but that they are diurnal also I have many times proved. Almost any hot sunny day I am even now sure of my specimen upon a certain oozy cherry trunk near by, the presence even of one beetle being distinctly announced at a distance of ten feet.

There are two common species of these beetles, the present insect being the _Osmoderma scabei_, as given by Harris.

Mushroom Spore-prints

The dusty puff-ball, floating its faint trail of smoke in the breeze from the ragged flue at its dome-shaped roof as from an elfin tepee, or perhaps enveloping our feet in its dense purple cloud as we chance to step upon it in the path, is familiar to every one--always enthusiastically welcomed by the small boy, to whom it is always a challenge for a kick, and a consequent demonstration of smoke worthy of a Fourth-of-July celebration.

A week ago this glistening gray bag, so free with its dust-puff at the slightest touch, was solid in substance and as white as cottage cheese in the fracture.

But in a later stage this clear white fracture would have appeared speckled or peppered with gray spots, and the next day entirely gray and much softened, and, later again, brown and apparently in a state of decay. But this is not _decay_. This moist brown mass becomes powdery by evaporation, and the puff-ball is now _ripe_, and intent only on posterity.

Each successive squeeze as we hold it between our fingers yields its generous response in a puff of brown smoke, which melts away apparently into air. But the puff-ball does not end in mere smoke. This vanishing purple cloud is composed of tiny atoms, so extremely minute as to require the aid of a powerful microscope to reveal their shapes. Each one of these atoms, so immaterial and buoyant as to be almost without gravity, floating away upon the slightest breath, or even wafted upward by currents of warm air from the heated earth, has within itself the power of reproducing another clump of puff-balls if only fortune shall finally lodge it in congenial soil. These spores are thus analogous to the seeds of ordinary plants. We have seen the myriadfold dispersion of its potential atoms in the cloud of spore-smoke from the puff-ball, but who ever thinks of a spore-cloud from a mushroom or a toadstool? Yet the same method is followed by all the other fungi, but with less conspicuousness. The puff-ball gives a visible salute, but any one of the common mushrooms or toadstools will afford us a much prettier and more surprising account of itself if we but give it the opportunity. This big yellow toadstool out under the poplar-tree, its golden cap studded with brownish scurfy warts, its under surface beset with closely plaited laminæ or gills, who could ever associate the cloud of dry smoke with this moist, creamy-white surface? We may sit here all day and watch it closely, but we shall see no sign of anything resembling smoke or dust. But even so, a filmy mist is continually floating away from beneath its golden cap, the eager breeze taking such jealous care of the continual shower that our eyes fail to perceive a hint of it.

Do you doubt it? You need wait but a few moments for a proof of the fact in a pretty experiment, which, when once observed, will certainly be resorted to as a frequent pastime in leisure moments when the toadstool or mushroom is at hand.

Here is a very ordinary-looking specimen growing beside the stone steps at our back door perhaps. Its top is gray; its gills beneath are fawn-color. We may shake it as rudely as we will, and yet we shall get no response such as the puff-ball will give us. But let us lay it upon a piece of white paper, gills downward, on the mantel, and cover it with a tumbler or finger-bowl, so as to absolutely exclude the least admission of air. At the expiration of five minutes, perhaps, we may detect a filmy, pinkish-yellow tint on the paper, following beneath the upraised border of the cap, like a shadow faintly lined with white. In a quarter of an hour the tinted deposit is perceptible across the room; and in an hour, if we carefully raise the mushroom, the perfect spore-print is revealed in all its beauty--a pink-brown disk with a white centre, which represents the point of contact of the cut stem, and white radiating lines, representing the edges of the thin gills, many of them as fine and delicate as a cobweb.

Every fresh species will yield its surprise in the markings and color of the prints.

These spore-deposits are of course fugitive, and will easily rub off at the slightest touch. But inasmuch as many of these specimens, either from their beauty of form or exquisite color, or for educational or scientific purposes, it will be desirable to preserve, I append simple rules for the making of the prints by a process by which they will become effectually "fixed," and thus easily kept without injury.

DIRECTIONS FOR MAKING A MUSHROOM SPORE-PRINT

Take a piece of smooth white writing-paper and coat its surface evenly with a thin solution of gum-arabic, dextrine, or other mucilage, and allow it to dry. Pin this, gummed side uppermost, to a board or table, preferably over a soft cloth, so that it will lie perfectly flat. To insure a good print the mushroom specimen should be fresh and firm, and the gills or spore-surface free from breaks or bruises.

Cut the stem off about level with the gills, then lay the mushroom, spore-surface downward, upon the paper, and cover with a tumbler, finger-bowl, or other vessel with a smooth, even rim, to absolutely exclude the slightest ingress of air.

After a few hours have passed by, perhaps even less, the spores will be seen through the glass on the paper at the extreme edge of the mushroom, their depth of color indicating the density of the deposit. If we now gently lift the glass, and with the utmost care remove the fungus, perhaps by the aid of pins previously inserted, in a _perfectly vertical_ direction, without the slightest side motion, the spore-print in all its beauty will be revealed--perhaps a rich brown circular patch with exquisite radiating white lines, marking the direction and edges of the gills, if an Agaric; perhaps a delicate pink, more or less clouded disk, here and there distinctly and finely honey-combed with white lines, indicating that our specimen is one of the polypores, as a Boletus. Other prints will yield rich golden disks, and there will be prints of red, lilac, greens, oranges, salmon-pinks, and browns and purples, variously lined in accordance with the number and nature of the gills or pores. Occasionally we shall look in vain for our print, which may signify that our specimen had already scattered its spores ere we had found it, or, what is more likely, that the spores are _invisible_ upon the paper, owing to their whiteness, in which case a piece of black paper must be substituted for the white ground, when the response will be beautifully manifest in a white tracery upon the black background. One of these, from the _Amanita muscarius_, is reproduced in our illustration. If the specimen is left too long, the spore-deposit is continued upward between the gills, and may reach a quarter of an inch in height, in which case, if extreme care in lifting the cap is used, we observe a very realistic counterfeit of the gills of the mushroom in high relief upon the paper. A print of this kind is of course very fragile, and must be handled with care. But a comparatively slight deposit of the spores, without apparent thickness, will give us the most perfect print, while at the same time yielding the full color. Such a print may also be fixed by our present method so as to withstand considerable rough handling, all that is required being to lay the print upon a wet towel until the moisture has penetrated through the paper and reached the gum. The spores are thus set, and, upon drying the paper, are quite securely fixed. Indeed, the moisture often exuded by the confined fungus beneath the glass proves sufficient to dampen the mucilage and set the spores.

A number of prints may be obtained from a single specimen.

To those of my readers interested in the science of this spore-shower I give sectional illustrations of examples of the two more common groups of mushrooms--the Agaric, or gilled mushroom, and the Polyporus, or tube-bearing mushroom. The entire surface of both gills and pores is lined with the spore-bearing membrane, or hymenium, the spores falling directly beneath their point of departure as indicated; in the case of the Agaric, in radiating lines in correspondence with the spaces between the gills, and in Polyporus in a tiny pile directly beneath the opening of each pore.

Some Curious Cocoons

The title of this article will doubtless recall to readers of "Harper's Young People"[1] a paper upon a similar subject which appeared in my calendar series two years ago. With the title the resemblance ends, for the cocoons which I am about to describe are of a sort that has never been mentioned in any previous article. These curious cocoons had been familiar to me since my boyhood, having long excited my wonder before finally revealing their mystery. They have recently been brought freshly to my notice by a letter that I have received, accompanied by a box of specimens, which reads as follows:

DEAR MR. GIBSON,--I have sent you to-day what I take to be three cocoons. These with three others I picked up from a gravel-walk in Po'keepsie over a year ago. They seemed connected at the ends, but easily broke apart. I kept them, purposing to see what would emerge, but nothing has rewarded my watch, and they seem now to be shrivelling up. Can you give me any information in regard to them? If so, I shall be very grateful to you.

[1] Now "Harper's Round Table."

I had barely read half through the brief description when I guessed the nature of the cocoons in question, having received similar letters before, as well as verbal queries, from others who had been puzzled by the non-committal specimens. The fact that they were found "on the gravel-walk," and were loosely "connected at the ends," was in itself strong evidence of their questionable nature, and I felt sure that I should recognize the cocoons as old friends. And I did.

Upon opening the box, I found three of them packed in a mass of cotton, two of them still loosely attached at the ends, the third one somewhat disintegrated. Each was about an inch in length, and half an inch in thickness, somewhat egg or cocoon shaped. Upon being separated, one end of each was seen to be hollowed out, and had thus previously received the pointed end of its fellow in the "connected" condition in which they had been found. In color they were a mouse gray precisely, and to the careless observer might have appeared to consist of caterpillar silk, though in reality having a substance more like felt. Yes, they might easily be mistaken for cocoons if we simply contented ourselves with looking at them.

Who, by a mere glance, could imagine the materials that the little bird called the vireo employs in building her peculiar nest? The reader will remember how we pulled one of those nests apart, and what strange materials we found woven in its fabric.[2] But they were hardly more surprising than we may discover within this sly cocoon if we dissect it. Now, to begin with, a true cocoon is not solid to the core, as this one evidently is as we press it between our fingers, nor can you pinch off a tuft of gray hair from the surface of an ordinary cocoon when you will. True, there are some cocoons into whose silk meshes the caterpillar weaves the hair of its body, but the felt thus formed is only a shell, and is intermeshed with silken webs, and one pinch alone will open up the hollow interior and show us the caterpillar or chrysalis within. Such, for instance, is the little brown winter snuggery of the woolly-bear caterpillar which we all know, and whose prickly cocoons may be found beneath stones and logs in the fields.

[2] See "Sharp Eyes,"

But what do we find in these cocoons that we now have before us? Not only is there no vestige of silk to be seen, but there are hairs enough in this single cocoon to have supplied a hundred caterpillars, while we look in vain for any sign of the spinner within. Indeed, there is no within; pinch after pinch reveals nothing but the same gray felt. We are now a quarter of an inch below the surface, when another pinch brings with it a small mass of white specks like crumbs intermingled with the hair, and in the hollow thus deepened we observe a shiny white object like ivory, with a minute ball at its tip. It certainly looks like a tiny bone. We impatiently break open the cocoon, when we see in truth a bone--indeed, a compact mass of bones from some very small animal, whose identity we may guess from the mouse-color of the felt. Here is the femur of a field-mouse--two of them--also a part of the fibula, and a dozen or more other bones. Breaking asunder the mass further, we find a few tiny teeth; and as we continue the process in the remaining two specimens, we bring to light parts of the skull, ribs, and vertebræ. A strange "cocoon" indeed.

A further examination of the remaining specimens disclosed similar ingredients, until the entire mass presented a collection somewhat like that shown in my illustration.