Boy Scouts Handbook Part 28

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copperhead]

The danger depends greatly on the amount of the poison injected, hence upon the size of the snake. It is for this reason that the big Florida rattlesnakes which grow to six feet and over are more to be feared than are other poisonous snakes. Of these, we have in our country, besides the rattlesnakes, the water moccasin, or cotton mouth, the copperhead, and the coral snake. The latter is a bright-colored snake of red, yellow, and black rings found in the South, but it is usually small, and not aggressive, so that but few cases of poisoning are known. The other two are common enough, the former from Norfolk, Va., south, the other all over the eastern country from Texas to Ma.s.sachusetts. They are usually confounded, however, with two perfectly harmless snakes, the cotton mouth with the common water snake, the copperhead with the so-called spreading adder, but as their differences have to be learned from actual inspection and are very hard to express in a description which would help to identify living specimens, it is wisest to keep away from all of them.

See "The Poisonous Snakes of North America." By Leonard Stejneger, published by Government Printing office, Washington.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Water moccasin]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Chrysalis]

INSECTS AND b.u.t.tERFLIES

_United States Bureau of Entomology_

(Ill.u.s.trations are copies from Comstock's "How to Know the b.u.t.terflies," through courtesy of D. Appleton & Company.)

There is an advantage in the study of insects over most other branches of nature, excepting perhaps plants, in that there is plenty of material. You may have to tramp miles to see a certain bird or wild animal, but if you will sit down on the first patch of gra.s.s you are sure to see something going on in the insect world.

b.u.t.terflies

Nearly all insects go through several different stages. The young bird is very much like its parent, so is the young squirrel or a young snake or a {102} young fish or a young snail; but with most of the insects the young is very different from its parents. All b.u.t.terflies and moths lay eggs, and these hatch into caterpillars which when full grown transform to what are called pupae or chrysalids--nearly motionless objects with all of the parts soldered together under an enveloping sheath. With some of the moths, the pupae are surrounded by silk coc.o.o.ns spun by the caterpillars just before finally transforming to pupae. With all b.u.t.terflies the chrysalids are naked, except with one species which occurs in Central America in which there is a common silk coc.o.o.n. With the moths, the larger part spin coc.o.o.ns, but some of them, like the owlet moths whose larvae are the cutworms, have naked pupre, usually under the surface of the ground. It is not difficult to study the transformations of the b.u.t.terflies and moths, and it is always very interesting to feed a caterpillar until it transforms, in order to see what kind of a b.u.t.terfly or moth comes out of the chrysalis.

Take the monarch b.u.t.terfly, for example: This is a large, reddish-brown b.u.t.terfly, a strong flier, which is seen often flying about in the spring and again in the late summer and autumn. This is one of the most remarkable b.u.t.terflies in America. It is found all over the United States. It is one of the strongest fliers that we know. It pa.s.ses the winter in the Southern states as an adult b.u.t.terfly, probably hidden away in cracks under the bark of trees or elsewhere. When spring comes the b.u.t.terflies come out and begin to fly toward the north. Wherever they find the milk-weed plant they stop and lay some eggs on the leaves. The caterpillars issue from the eggs, feed on the milkweed, transform to chrysalids; then the b.u.t.terflies issue and continue the northward flight, stopping to lay eggs farther north on other milkweeds. By the end of June or July some of these Southern b.u.t.terflies have found their way north into Canada and begin the return flight southward. Along in early August they will be seen at the summer resorts in the Catskill Mountains, and by the end of October they will have traveled far down into the Southern states where they pa.s.s the winter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Empty chrysalis and b.u.t.terfly]

The caterpillar of the monarch or milkweed b.u.t.terfly is a very striking creature. It is nearly two inches long when full grown. Its head is yellow striped with black; its body is white with narrow black and yellow cross-stripes on each {103} segment. On the back of the second segment of the thorax there is a pair of black, whiplash-like filaments, and on the eighth joint there is a similar shorter pair.

When this caterpillar gets ready to transform to chrysalis, it hangs itself up by its tail end, the skin splits and gradually draws back, and the chrysalis itself is revealed--pale pea-green in color with golden spots. Anyone by hunting over a patch of milkweed anywhere in the United States during the summer is quite apt to find these caterpillars feeding. It will be easy to watch them and to see them transform, and eventually to get the b.u.t.terfly.

The same thing may be done with anyone of the six hundred and fifty-two different kinds of b.u.t.terflies in the United States.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Larva getting ready to transform]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Full grown larva]

Moths

When it comes to moths, there is a much greater variety.

Instead of six hundred and fifty-two, there are fifty-nine hundred and seventy in Doctor Dyar's big catalogue. Perhaps the most interesting of these caterpillars are the big native silk-worms, like those of the cecropia moth, the luna moth, the polyphemus moth, or the promethia moth. These caterpillars are very large and are to be found feeding upon the leaves of different trees, and all spin strong silken coc.o.o.ns. People have tried to reel these coc.o.o.ns, thinking that they might be able to use the silk to make silk cloth as with the domestic silk-worm of commerce, but they have been unable to reel them properly. The polyphemus moth, for example, has been experimented with a great deal. It is found over a greater part of the United States, and its caterpillar feeds upon a great variety of trees and shrubs such as oak, b.u.t.ternut, hickory, ba.s.swood, elm, maple, birch, chestnut, sycamore, and many others. The caterpillar is light green and has raised lines of silvery white on the side. It grows to a very large size and spins a dense, hard coc.o.o.n, usually attached to leaves.

There {104} are two generations in the Southern states, and one in the Northern states. The moth which comes out of the coc.o.o.n has a wing spread of fully five inches. It is reddish-gray or somewhat buff in color with darker bands near the edge of the wings, which themselves are pinkish on the outside, and with a large clear spot near the centre of the forewing and a regular eyespot (clear in part and blue in the rest) in the centre of the hind wing.

One wishing to know about b.u.t.terflies and moths should consult a book ent.i.tled, "How to Know the b.u.t.terflies," by Prof. J. H. Comstock of Cornell University and his wife, Mrs. Comstock, published by D.

Appleton & Co., of New York, or, "The b.u.t.terfly Book," by Dr. W. J.

Holland of Pittsburg, published by Doubleday, Page & Co., of New York, and "The Moth Book," also by Doctor Holland, and published by the same firm.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Caterpillar to chrysalis]

Other Insects

There are many more different kinds of insects than there are of flowering plants, and if we were to add together all of the different kinds of birds, mammals, reptiles, fishes, crabs, mollusks, and all of the lower forms of animal life, they would not all together amount to so many different kinds as there are insects. This makes the cla.s.sification of insects quite complicated. There are eighteen or nineteen main orders, and each one is subdivided almost indefinitely.

There is not one of these that is not full of interest. The habits of ants, for example, living in communities by themselves, afford a tremendous opportunity for interesting observation. A good book about them has been recently written by Dr. W. M. Wheeler, of Harvard, ent.i.tled "Ants, their Structure, Development, and Behavior," published by the Columbia University Press, New York.

{105}

Many insects live in the water, and to follow their life histories in small home-made aquaria is one of the most interesting occupations one could have, and there is a lot to be learned about these insects. Go to any stagnant pool and you will find it swarming with animal life: Larvae or "wigglers" of mosquitoes, and a number of other aquatic insects will be found, feeding upon these wigglers. Water bugs of different kinds will be found and the life histories of most of these were until quite recently almost unknown.

Beetles and Wasps

The order _Coleoptera_, comprising what we know as beetles, has thousands of species, each one with its own distinctive mode of life; some of them feeding upon other insects, others boring into wood, others feeding upon flowers, others upon leaves, and so on in endless variety.

The wasps also will bear study. Here, too, there is a great variety, some of them building the paper nests known to every one, others burrowing into the surface of the ground and storing up in these burrows gra.s.shoppers and other insects for food for their young which are grub-like in form; others still burrowing into the twigs of bushes, and others making mud nests attached to the trunks of trees or to the clapboards of houses or outbuildings.

This is just a hint at the endless variety of habits of insects. The United States National Museum publishes a bulletin, by Mr. Nathan Banks, ent.i.tled "Directions for Collecting and Preserving Insects,"

which gives a general outline of the cla.s.sification, and should be possessed by everyone who wishes to take up the study from the beginning.

FISHES

_By Dr. Hugh M. Smith, Deputy Commissioner United States Fisheries_

There is no more fascinating and profitable study than the fish life of the lakes, ponds, rivers, brooks, bays, estuaries, and coasts of the United States; and no more important service can be rendered our American boys than to teach them to become familiar with our native food and game fishes, to realize their needs, and by example and precept to {106} endeavor to secure for the fishes fair consideration and treatment.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Esox lucius_--Common pike pickerel]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Oncorhynchus tschawytscha_--Chinook salmon]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Coregonus clupeiformis_--Common whitefish]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Salvelinus fontinalis_--Brook trout: speckled trout]