Part 12

Another and another of these friendly meetings between them and other wasps took place in the half-hour in which I watched the sport. There were lulls in hostilities, during which an atmosphere of perfect peace and harmony seemed to reign around my bramble-bush. The flies were motionless in their ecstasy, and the hornet element seemed by common consent to keep temporarily shady, and even the butterflies seemed to forget that they had wings. But not for long, for now with a shimmering glitter our darning-needle invades the scene, and retires to a convenient perch with a ruby-eyed fly in his teeth, while a swarm of very startled butterflies tells conspicuously of the demoralization which he has left in his path. Among the butterfly representatives I at length observed one individual which at first had escaped me, an exclusive white cabbage-butterfly which sipped quietly at his leaf in the shade, and seemed to take little interest in the disreputable actions of his associates. Nothing could move him or entice him away from his convivial employment. But, alas! his folly soon found him out, for, on happening to look again, I observed he had found a new acquaintance--a hornet that had evidently been long desirous of meeting him. One by one I saw my butterfly's dismembered wings fall to the grassy jungle below, while a big black wasp proceeded to enjoy the collected sweets which he had doubtless observed were being so carefully stored away there in the shady retreat.

And now my pretty black butterfly--no, it proved to be the little day-flying grape-vine-moth, the eight-spotted black Alypia--appeared from some unseen source, and spun his crapy white-streaked halo among the leaves, at length settling among a little company of flies. Softly behind him creeps a brown wasp (Polistes), with his mouth watering, while from the opposite quarter a steel-blue mud-wasp approaches, with apparently similar designs. Neither invader sees the other. Simultaneously, as though answering to a signal, the two make a dash at the moth; but he is too quick for them. In a twinkling he is off in his pretty halo again, while the two disappointed contestants have clinched, and with stings and jaws vigorously plying fall to the jungle below, and seek satisfaction in mortal combat.

Here is a pretty little yellow and black banded flower-fly, which is having a quiet little picnic all by himself on a bed of yarrow bloom close by. But a big black paper-hornet has suddenly seen an attraction hither also, and is soon creeping stealthily among the blossoms with a wild and hungry look. But the hornets seemed to waste their time on the flies. Seemingly confident in their less complicated wing machinery, the two-winged fly rarely sought escape until within very close range of his enemy, and his resources never seemed to disappoint him at the critical moment.

Among the insect assemblage was a large number of ants of all kinds and sizes, the common large black species being conspicuous. Here is one creeping and sipping along a grass stem. A small digger-wasp likes this grass stem too, but instead of exchanging courtesies on the subject, the wasp proceeds to bite the ant's head off without ceremony, and continues sipping at the stem as though decapitation were a mere casual incident in its daily walk.

On the same stem a big blowfly has alighted. Judging from appearances, he has had his fill of good things, and is now making his leisurely toilet in the peculiar fashion of his kind, rubbing down his back and wings with his hind legs, twisting his front feet into spirals, and ever and anon testing the strength of his elastic neck attachment as he threatens to pull his head from his body.

This worldly act has been progressing for some moments under the gaze of a big black digger-wasp, who now concludes to cut it short. When at close range with his prey, the fly suddenly discovers the unhealthy location which he occupies, and actually protruding his tongue by way of parting salute, he is off with a buzz. He has barely taken wing, however, when a still louder buzz is heard, while a great black bumblebee follows closely in his wake, until the sounds of both are lost in the distance. The hum of this bumblebee is a frequent musical feature of the entertainment, and many is the dance that is set to its minstrelsy, as the burly insect darts in among the merrymakers and is off to his perch near by. It is only as we steal away and observe him closely that we learn the secret of his occasional sorties. There on a clover blossom he sits--sipping honey? Oh no. It is honey-dew that he is enjoying, and second-hand at that, as he devours the satiated bluebottle-fly which is empaled on his black horny beak. For this is only a bumblebee in masquerade--a carnivorous fly, in truth, which, safe in its disguise of respectability, hovers in the flowery haunts of the innocents and, of course, reaps his reward.

And what is this? A yellow-jacket has found an ambrosial attraction here upon the bramble leaf. Meanwhile a great black and white paper-hornet has seen his opportunity, and is soon slyly approaching behind the sipper. That he has designs on that jacket and its contents is apparent. In a moment the onslaught is consummated, and in the struggle which ensues the black assailant relieves his victim--of his watch presumably, for he has captured the entire garment, which he soon rifles and discards with some show of satisfaction.

And so my carnival proceeds. So it began with the dawn; so it will continue till dusk; and through the night, with new revels, for aught I know, and will be prolonged for days or weeks.

* * * * *

Reflective reader, how often, as you have strolled through some nook in the suburban wood, have you paused in philosophic mood at the motley relics of good cheer which sophisticated the retreat, so pathetically eloquent of pristine joys to which you had been a stranger? Here in my present picnic is the suggestive parallel, for even though no such actual episodes as those I have described had been witnessed by me, an examination of the premises beneath my bramble were a sufficient commentary. These were the unimpeachable witnesses of the pleasures which I have pictured. Dismembered butterfly wings strewed the grassy jungle, among which were a fair sprinkling from that black and white halo already noted. Occasional dead wasps and detached members of wasp and hornet anatomy were frequent, while the blue glitter of the bodies of flies lit up a shadowy recess here and there, showing that Musca had not always so correctly gauged his comparative wing resources as my observation had indicated.

It was interesting to discover, too, down deep among the herbage, another suggestive fact in the presence of a shrewd spider that showed a keen eye to the main chance, and had spread his gossamer catch-all beneath the bramble. It was all grist into his mill, and no doubt his charnel-house at the base of his silken tunnel could have borne eloquent testimony alike to his wise sagacity and his epicurean luxury.

I have pictured my picnic, and the question naturally arises, what was it all about--what the occasion for this celebration? There was certainly no distinct visible cause for the social gathering upon this particular bramble-bush. There were a number of other bramble-bushes in the near neighborhood which, it would seem, should possess equal attractions, but which were ignored. In what respect did the one selected differ from the others?

This bramble had become the scene of my carnival simply because it chanced to be directly beneath an overhanging branch of pine some twenty feet above. Here dwelt mine host who had issued the invitations and spread the feast, the limb for about a foot space being surrounded by a colony of aphides, or plant-lice, from whose distilling pipes the rain of sweet honey-dew had fallen ceaselessly upon the leaves below. The flies, butterflies, and ants had been attracted, as always, by its sweets; the preoccupied convivial flies, in turn, were a tempting bait for the wasps and hornets, and my dragon-fly and mock bumblebee found a similar attraction in the neighborhood.

An examination of the trunk of the pine showed the inevitable double procession of ants, both up and down the tree, with the habitual interchange of comment; and could we but have obtained a closer glimpse of the pine branch above, we might certainly have observed the queer spectacle of the small army of ants interspersed everywhere among the swarm of aphides. Not in antagonism; indeed, quite the reverse; herders, in truth, jealously guarding their feeding flock, creeping among them with careful tread, caressing them with their antennae while they sipped at the honeyed pipes everywhere upraised in most expressive and harmonious welcome.

This intimate and friendly association of the ants and aphides has been the subject of much interesting scientific investigation and surprising discovery. Huber and Lubbock have given to the world many startling facts, the significance of which may be gathered from the one statement that certain species of ants carry their devotion so far as literally to cultivate the aphides, carrying them bodily into their tunnels, where they are placed in underground pens, reared and fed and utilized in a manner which might well serve as a pattern for the modern dairy farm. Indeed, after all that we have already seen upon a single bramble-bush, would it be taking too much license with fact to add one more pictorial chronicle--an exhilarated and promiscuous group of butterflies, ants, hornets, wasps, and flies uniting in "a health to the jolly aphis"?

A FEW NATIVE ORCHIDS AND THEIR INSECT SPONSORS

In a previous article I discussed the general subject of the fertilization of flowers, briefly outlining the several historical and chronological steps which ultimately led to Darwin's triumphant revelation of the divine plan of "cross-fertilization" as the mystery which had so long been hidden beneath the forms and faces of the flowers.

In the same paper I presented many illustrative examples among our common wild flowers possessing marvellous evolved devices, mechanisms, and peculiarities of form by which this necessary cross-fertilization was assured.

Prior to Darwin's time the flower was a voice in the wilderness, heard only in faintest whispers, and by the few. But since his day they have bloomed with fresher color and more convincing perfume. Science brought us their message. Demoralizing as it certainly was to humanity's past ideals, philosophic, theologic, and poetic, it bore the spirit of absolute conviction, and must be heard.

What a contrast this winged botany of to-day to that of a hundred years ago! The flower now no longer the mere non-committal, structural, botanical specimen. No longer the example of mere arbitrary, independent creation, reverently and solely referred to the orthodox "delight of man." The blossom whose unhappy fate was bemoaned by the poet because, forsooth, it must needs "blush unseen," or "waste its sweetness on the desert air," is found alone in that musty hortus siccus of a blind and deluded past. From the status of mere arbitrary creation, however "beautiful," "curious," "eccentric," hitherto accepted alone on faith--"it is thus because it is created thus: what need to ask the reason why?"--it has become a part of our inspiring heritage, a reasonable, logical, comprehensible result, a manifestation of a beautiful divine scheme, and is thus an ever-present witness and prophet of divine care and supervision.

The flower of to-day! What an inspiration to our reverential study! What a new revelation is borne upon its perfume! Its forms and hues, what invitations to our devotion! This spot upon the petal; this peculiar quality of perfume or odor; this fringe within the throat; this curving stamen; this slender tube! What a catechism to one who knows that each and all represent an affinity to some insect, towards whose vital companionship the flower has been adapting itself through the ages, looking to its own more certain perpetuation!

The great Linnaeus would doubtless have claimed to "know" the "orchid," which perhaps he named. Indeed, did he not "know" it to the core of its physical, if not of its physiological, being? But could he have solved the riddle of the orchid's persistent refusal to set a pod in the conservatory? Could he have divined why the orchid blossom continues in bloom for weeks and weeks in this artificial glazed tropic--perhaps weeks longer than its more fortunate fellows left behind in their native haunts--and then only to wither and perish without requital? Know the orchid?--without the faintest idea of the veritable divorce which its kidnapping had involved!

Thanks to the new dispensation, we may indeed claim a deeper sympathy with the flower than is implied in a mere recognition of its pretty face. We know that this orchid is but the half of itself, as it were; that its color, its form, however eccentric and incomprehensible, its twisted inverted position on its individual stalk-like ovary, its slender nectary, its carefully concealed pollen--all are anticipations of an insect complement, a long-tongued night-moth perhaps, with whose life its own is mysteriously linked through the sweet bond of perfume and nectar, and in the sole hope of posterity.

And the flower had been stolen from its haunt while its consort slept, and had awakened in a glazed prison--doubtless sufficiently comfortable, save for the absence of that one indispensable counterpart, towards whom we behold in the blossom's very being the embodied expression of welcome.

Blooming day after day in anticipation of his coming, and week after week still hoping against hope, we see the flower fade upon its stalk, and with what one might verily believe to be evidences of disconsolation, were it not that the ultra-scientist objects to such a sentimental assumption with regard to a flower, which is unfortunate enough to show no sign of nerves or gray matter in its composition. Who shall claim to know his orchid who knows not its insect sponsor?

To take one of our own wild species. Here is the Arethusa bulbosa of Linnaeus, for instance. Its pollen must reach its stigma--so he supposed--in order for the flower to become fruitful. But this is clearly impossible, as the pollen never leaves its tightly closed box unless removed by outside aid, which aid must also be required to place it upon the stigma. This problem, which confronted him in practically every orchid he met, Linnaeus, nor none of his contemporaries, nor indeed his followers for many years, ever solved.

Not until the time of Christian Conrad Sprengel (1735) did this and other similar riddles begin to be cleared up, that distinguished observer having been the first to discover in the honey-sipping insect the key to the omnipresent mystery. Many flowers, he discovered, were so constructed or so planned that their pollen could not reach their own stigmas, as previously believed. The insect, according to Sprengel, enjoyed the anomalous distinction of having been called in, in the emergency, to fulfil this apparent default in the plain intentions of nature, as shown in the flower. Attracted by the color and fragrance of the blossom, with their implied invitation to the assured feast of nectar, the insect visited the flower, and thus became dusted with the pollen, and in creeping or flying out from it conveyed the fecundating grains to the receptive stigma, which they could not otherwise reach. Such was Sprengel's belief, which he endeavored to substantiate in an exhaustive volume containing the result of his observations pursuant to this theory.

But Sprengel had divined but half the truth. The insect was necessary, it was true, but the Sprengel idea was concerned only with the individual flower, and the great botanist was soon perplexed and confounded by an opposing array of facts which completely destroyed the authority of his work--facts which showed conclusively that the insect could not thus convey the pollen as described, because the stigma in the flower was either not yet ready to receive it--perhaps tightly closed against it--or was past its receptive period, even decidedly withered.