Part 22

The Death’s-head Moth is a great enemy to the bees, being exceedingly fond of honey. Mr. Huber dwells at length upon the singular sagacity of the little hive people in defending their stores against this intruder. The bees, at a first night attack of the Death’s-head, appear quite paralyzed with fear, and make no attempts to meet the invader; but the creature has hardly filled himself, and taken flight again, before they begin to erect a waxen wall within their gates, merely leaving one little aperture just large enough to allow of the passage of a single bee at a time, and of course the baffled moth, on appearing again before their camp, is compelled to beat a retreat. The account given by Mr. Huber of the defences raised by the bees, on these occasions, is very interesting; he observes that these moths were so common in 1804, and committed their devastations on so large a scale, that it attracted general attention, and the owners of apiaries determined to defend the mouths of the hives; when preparing to carry out their plans, however, they discovered that in many instances the bees had already taken the same course, human reason, and insect instinct producing the same result. The variety of these bee fortifications was also very remarkable, as they differed in almost every hive; walls, or arcades, or masked gateways, of various constructions, were raised with great speed and singular skill. The fact that the bees did not make war upon the moths with their usual arm, the sting, has been conjectured by Mr. Huber, to proceed, possibly, from the resemblance between the cry of the Death’s-head, and that of their own queen bee when captured, which, it is well known, always throws the entire band of working bees into disorder and confusion.

The Death’s-head moth is not found in America. This is rather singular, as the favorite food of its caterpillar is the potato, an American vegetable, formerly unknown in Europe. The Sphinx Chionanthi, one of our American moths, resembles it in size; but the larvæ, and the markings of the moth itself, are wholly different.

NOTE FF.

“AMERICAN BLIGHT,” (aphis lanata) p. 236.

This blight has been a very great pest of the orchards, in some countries of Europe, especially in parts of France, England, and the Netherlands. In 1810, so many of the cider apples of Gloucestershire were infested with it, that it was feared cider-making would have to be abandoned in that region. Sir Joseph Banks appears to have given the insect the name of “American blight,” being led to believe it had not come from France, and supposing that it had been imported from America with some apple-trees, planted in a nursery at Chelsea. An English writer on orchards says, “I have from good authority heard that it was brought to this country from France, in the reign of Louis XIV., when a colony of refugees settled at Paddington, and there it was first observed to begin its depredations on apple-trees.” This last account is far more likely to be correct, since the insect has been very common in France, while in America, we hear so little of it, that it is scarcely known to any but entomologists, and nursery men.

Dr. Fitch, in the Annual Report on the State Cabinet of Natural History of New York, dated 1851, says of this aphis: “Commonly, only solitary individuals are found, and in but one instance have I met with it clustered, and covering a limb, as described by foreign writers.”

It is rather remarkable that as warm seasons are said to favor its increase, our warmer summers should not have rendered it more troublesome in this country; possibly our colder winters may have a counteracting effect, although, as a general rule, insects with their larvæ and eggs, will bear great extremes of cold.

NOTE GG. THE HOLLY, (Ilex) p. 247.

We have in America two kinds of holly. One, Ilex montana, or Mountain Holly, is found on the Alleghanies, and the Catskills, and is seldom more than a straggling shrub, from eight to twenty feet in height. The Ilex opaca, or American Holly, strictly speaking, is a tree from twenty to fifty feet in height, found in most woodlands from Maine to the Southern States, where it is more common than in the northern parts of the country. It is far, however, from being a familiar tree to most Americans, whose acquaintance with the holly is apt to be more connected with their English reading, than with the reality. The foliage of the holly of this continent is less glossy, and the berries are less highly colored than those of the European tree.

NOTE HH. TO WILT, page 249.

The verb to “wilt” thus noticed by Mr. Knapp, as an English provincialism, is very generally used in America, and perhaps deserves a word of defence more than most terms of the kind preserved among us. It would seem to have a meaning of its own, scarcely expressed by any other synonym; it signifies neither to “wither,” to “blight,” to “die,” nor to “decay.” If we understand the word rightly, it means something of debility and drooping, akin to faintness in animal life, and implying the capability of restoration. There is thus a shade of distinction in the word, which at times may approach to poetical delicacy, and which redeems it from a place with others of the same class.

To “hawl,” or “haul,” is also placed among the provincialisms of his neighborhood by Mr. Knapp, p. 52; but this, assuredly, is a good English word. Johnson gives the derivation from the French haler, and the Dutch halen, to draw. It is a very common word among us, and, with Johnson for our authority, we need not give it up.

Let it not be supposed from the previous remarks, that as a general thing, the writer is in favor of keeping up the provincialisms of our language; far from this, it appears to us that as the English tongue spreads wider and wider over the earth, it becomes a more imperative duty among those who use it, to preserve their common speech in all its purity.

NOTE II. FAIRY RINGS, page 251.

There are two sorts of circular marks on the turf bearing this name in England. “One kind about seven yards in diameter, containing a round, bare path, a foot broad, with green grass in the midst of it.” “The other varying in size, is marked by a circumference of grass, greener and fresher than the rest.” Some writers have attributed these rings to the fertilizing effects of a particular mushroom growing in circles; while others hold them to be produced by electricity.

It is well known that on the American prairies, there are broad rings, the origin of which has been disputed by different travelers, and to which the name of “fairy rings,” has also been given. One of the writers on that region, has accounted for them very naturally, and if his report be correct, we have not much ground for indulging in the poetical fancy that they are the tracks of the fairies dancing “their ringlets to the whistling wind.” Mr. Catlin believes them to be nothing more than the “wallows” of the buffalo.

“In the heat of summer these huge animals ... often graze on the low grounds of the prairies, where there is a little stagnant water lying amongst the grass, and the ground underneath, being saturated with it, is soft, into which the enormous bull, lowered down upon one knee, will plunge his horns and at last his head ... soon making an excavation in the ground, into which the water filters from among the grass, forming for him in a few moments, a cool and comfortable bath.... By this operation, which is done perhaps in the space of half an hour, a circular excavation of fifteen or twenty feet in diameter, and two feet in depth is completed, and left for the water to run into, which soon fills it to the level of the ground.... To these sinks, the waters lying on the surface of the prairies are continually draining and lodging in them their vegetable deposits, which, after a lapse of years, fill them up to the surface with a rich soil, which throws up an unusual growth of grass and herbage, forming conspicuous circles which arrest the eye of the traveler.” Mr. C. farther adds that “these strange circles often occur in groups, and of different sizes.”—Catlin’s N. A. Indians, Vol. I. p. 249.

NOTE JJ. ÆCIDIUM, page 255.

Æcidium is a genus of minute parasitic plants, belonging to the order of Fungi. They are found upon the leaves, the bark, and even upon the flowers of living plants, but are altogether distinct from the cuticle of the vegetable on which they have their growth. They are always tubular in their form. On the weeds and trees of northern countries they are very common, and a great many species have attracted the attention of botanists, while to the careless eye, they often appear like the nests of some small insect. The common fancy among farmers that the barberry-bush is injurious to wheat, producing rust in the grain, is owing to an æcidium growing on the barberry, which covers its leaves with a bright, orange powder. The only resemblance, however, between the rust of wheat and the barberry blight lies in the color. The rust in wheat, is in fact another, and a wholly different species of this same genus æcidium; it is called by botanists, Puccinia graminis. Another common æcidium is that of the pear-tree, which has received the name of Peridia.

NOTE KK. POLLARDING TREES, page 267.

The word pollard is but little used in America; it is derived from the verb to poll, or lop, the heads of trees. With us, the custom so much condemned by the author, is unknown; but it is no just sense of the value of wood, no wise spirit of true economy, which causes the difference. On the contrary, if our timber is not mutilated in this way, it is simply owing to a custom still more culpable and wasteful—wherever a branch is needed, a whole tree will be felled. Often has the writer seen a fine chestnut hewn down by some careless lad, merely for the nuts of one season’s growth; frequently have we found oaks, or maples of good size, cut at the root in the same way, for the sake of the wild grapes which hung entwined among their higher branches; and on one occasion, we have seen a noble pine, a hundred and fifty feet in height, the growth perchance of several centuries, felled only to reach a hive of bees, which had taken refuge in a hollow branch.

NOTE LL. ICE FLOATING, page 271.

Absurd as the notion is, that the ice in our lakes and rivers sinks in spring, yet there are not wanting people who firmly believe it. Not long since, the writer chanced to meet in print a traveler’s story, evidently credited by the individual who asserted it, that the ice in Lake Champlain invariably disappeared in this way, sinking to the bottom of the lake every spring. Whether to rise again the following winter, the reader was not informed. In fact, it would be quite as rational to expect the snow which lies so long on our frozen rivers and lakes most winters, to sink bodily into the ice, as to maintain that the ice sinks in the water.

There is a coating of ice, however, which is found not unfrequently beneath the water, and that in running streams. But this is ground ice, as it is called, and has been formed where it is found, adhering to the soil which forms the bed of the river, and has never sunk from the surface. On the contrary, once loosened from its hold, it not only rises itself, but brings with it pebbles, gravel, &c. The formation of this ground ice has attracted the attention of distinguished scientific men. The slower motion of water at the bottom than on the surface of a stream, connected with the fact that crystals of ice form naturally and very readily on pointed and rough bodies, such as the stones or vegetable substances at the bottom of streams, have been supposed to be the causes of this ground ice.

INDEX.

Agarics, the pale gray species of, 86

— the verdigris, ibid.

— not easily investigated, 87