The daily telegram. [volume] (Clarksburg, W. Va.) 1901-1926, 1914-06-10
CHRISTOPHER
IS CHAMPION
OF AERONAUTS
Can lump 100 Times Length
and Sail 1000 Miles, Says
Plant Explorer.

WASHINGTON, D. c., June 10
The Rip van wrinkles, the Jaekels
and Hydes, the aristocrats, the phil
osophers and the "hoboes" Of the in
sect world are described in a com-
munication to the National Geograph-
&c Society, at Washington, D. c., by
David Fairchild, the plant explorer
who has secured the world for plants
OF economic value and introduced
them into the United States.
Go in Great Numbers.
In describing the peculiar habits
and remarkable achievements of in
sects. he says, the champion aeronaut
is the king grasshoppor, which has
the ability to jump 100 times its
length. 1t can also sail for 1000
miles before the wind. These grass
hoppers sometimes go in such num-
bers that they make cloud 1000
square miles in extent. Its great =.
front lip hides pair OF jaws as efrec-
tive rs hay chopper, and it has an
appetite as voracious as that OF Il
hippopotamus," writes Mr.. Fairchild.
"A young chick finds itself shut inside
the egg-shell and must work its way
out alone, but the young grasshoppers
find themselves-the whole nestful-
shut in hardened case in the ground
made by their mother, and it takes a
half dozen of them working together
to dislcdge the lid which shuts them
in.
THE carrying power of the song of
the cricket is extraordinary; there are
species whose strident notes can be
heard for mile, although their lit
tie bodies are scarcely more than an
inch in length. The males alone are
musical, aud it is reasonable TO SIP
pose, since the females have ears in
their forelegs, that they are singing tc
their mates and not to mankind. As
one listens to their friendly song it is
hard to appreciate what fighters they
are among themselves. the larger ones
even turning cannibals when food is
scarce.
Cockroach Most Detested.
"Of all creatures of our houses, the
cockroach is the most detested.
Housewives may be surprised to learn
that cockroach can live five years,
that it takes year to develop to ma
turity. The female lays her eggs in
horny capsule like spectacle case,
which she carries about with her I'M
til she is ready TO deposit it in some
suitable place. Later she returns to
help her baby cockroaches out of the.
shells
THE song of the cicada is the
noisiest in the insect world The
17-year cicada has been called the
Rip Van Wrinkle of the insect world.
From its tiny eggs there issues n
creature with soft white body and
mole-like front legs. 1t hurries to
the ground and disappears beneath
its surface sometimes to a depth OF
twenty feet. For seventeen years
it digs its war around in absolute
darkness. and then comes to the sur
face to join in a marriage reveIry
of few brief weeks. 1t is a full
fledged creature of the air. though
encased still in grave clothes of
parchment; but it soon splits these
up the back, pulls itself out, dries
its surface sometimes to a depth of
with the whirr of an aerodrome to
live but a few brief weeks.
Ants Are Social.
"The social organization of the
ants has been the admiration of hui
man beings from the earliest times,
because the interest of the individu-
al is merged SO completely into that
OF the colony. Theirs is an organi-
cation of females. The workers are