The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-08-21


 Katydids, grasshoppers, locusts
 walking sticks" crickets and beetle
 ere killed by the frost The eggs hid
 den In the ground or concealed in tn
 bark of trees furnish the supply for tn
 next year. The cold retards the devel
 opment of the egg, which matches il
 the warm days of spring. Sometimes al
 unusually cold winter plays havoc witt
 the dormant insect life, but the cunning
 of nature strengthes the frail eggshel
 against the power of heat and cold alike
 until the secret alchemy of the sun stirE
 the budding life and bids 1t come forth
 Beetles exhibit wonderful instinc
 in caring for their helpless young
 Among a certain species the eggs are
 rolled in balls of material suitable fol
 food. The balls are packed away in g
 nest to await the voracious appetites o1
 the infant beetle that must eat it's way
 out. The burying or sexton beetles de
 posit their eggs In the bodies of dead birds or field mice They then set tc
 work and perform the proper rites of burial, heaping the earth over the body of the dead. The young beetle matched from the egg finds a store, of food awaiting him on his arrival in the world.
 Batteries and moths are victims of cold weather, though in some instances 1t has been proved that they have great powers of endurance. Both butteries and moths live in the region of glaciers in the high Alps, and certain species is found fluttering about on the sum- | pN,ft nf yNr {. i eternal snow. These butterflies and moths are intimately associated with the gentians and other flowers belong ing to these lofty attitudes, and act as aids in cross fertilization.
 | Our temperature zone boasts of one or two winter butterflies warmly cloth l ed in microscopic feathers. And on | cheerless February and March days | these blithesome heralds of spring sport about like animated sunbeams and living prophecies of springtide. But what has become of the butterflies and moths of the vanished summertide? They are a gay yet thrifty folk In look ing out for the future of their race. Search the garden and cocoons and chrysalids are found in all sorts of shapes and condltions-angular and ovoid short and thick, long and thin suspended by the head or by the tail head downward; hung horizontally in a curled leaf like the darling baby in the tree top; tucked away under a soft web coverlet on the sheltered side of the gate post, or uder the edge of the sidewalk; within the warm corner of a knothole or a crack in the boards, un- der the bark of the trees, in a crazy crotch of the twigs and even buried in the ground. The delicate yet firm silk en threads bind them to the topmost branches, where, eXpostd to sleet, snow and rain, whirled about by every howl ing blast. they defy tte winter.
 The butterfly and mota lay eggs in a suitable feeding ground during the ear- ly summer The matched larva or cat erpillar eats voraciously, gorging itself until 1t can eat no more. Or if too fat for further exertion. it spins cocoon and makes ready for winter. During the winter it apparently slumbers in its snug quarters, nourished by the plenti- ful supply of fat 1t accumulated during the caterpillar stage, and at the proper time emerges full-grown moth or but terfly, gorgeously attired and bent on holiday making
 The spiders, so far as I can learn, store away no food supply in winter quarters. Quantities of eggs are laid and carefully sheltered in velvety cob- web sacks impervious to the weather. These sacks may be found swinging by silleen ropes from the golden rod and milkweed and hidden away in crevices and corners of board fences and stone walls. The little spiders creep from the luxurious sleeping bags provided by the solicitouS care of their wise mother, and if they escape the cannibalistic propen- sities of their brothers and sisters enter at once on a career of trapping and hunting.
 The old saying, "Go to the ant, thou sluggard," and the quaint fable of the foolish, shivering grasshopper and the wise and thrifty ant would lead us to believe that wisdom dwelt in the halls of the ant hill along with the fore thought so common to the beehive. The bees and wasps do lay up stores for winter. The wasps do not provision quite so wisely as the bees, but in the center of the cone-shaped nest of the paper-making wasps may be found goodly store of honey. All bees do not store as literally as does the hive bee, and the mortality among bees is wide spread While thousands die, few survive, and of these few it Is general ly the females that show the greatest tenacity to life and serve as mothers of the race for the next summer. Hive bees receive such fostering care from man that they can hardly be counted our wild friends who must shift for themselves.
 The thrifty ant deserves much sym pathy in that it is the favorite prey of spiders, crickets, beetles and other in sect hunters. In spite of vicissitudes it is devoted to its community life. The care of it's young, the management of it's slaves and captured aphides from which the honeydew is milked, furnish l incidents for tale as interesting as the customs of any wandering tribe of the