The laudator temperis acti is out of favour just now: the world is on the move. Yes, but sometimes it moves backwards. When I was a boy, our twopenny textbooks told us that man was...
This insect is of little economic importance to us at present but its peculiar habit of producing light makes it a very striking form and one which deserves study. The firefly is a...
I come now to a point of the very first importance to all interested in the cultivation of bees. If the opinions which the great majority of American bee-keepers entertain, are cor...
IT is not my intention to write a treatise on apiculture, or on practical bee-keeping. Excellent works of the kind abound in all civilised countries, and it were useless to attempt...
Plant some melon, radish or other seeds in fertile soil in pots for use in this study. When lice appear on crops in the garden or field, collect a leaf with a few on it and careful...
THE NARBONNE LYCOSA, OR BLACK-BELLIED TARANTULA. THE BURROW. Michelet has told us how, as a printer's apprentice in a cellar, he established amicable relations with a Spider. (Jule...
I am back in the village, in my father's house. I am now seven years old; and it is high time that I went to school. Nothing could have turned out better: the master is my godfathe...
THE NARBONNE LYCOSA, OR BLACK-BELLIED TARANTULA. THE BURROW. Michelet has told us how, as a printer's apprentice in a cellar, he established amicable relations with a Spider. (Jule...
Notwithstanding the importance of the subject, I shall not enlarge upon the nuptials of the Epeirae, grim natures whose loves easily turn to tragedy in the mystery of the night. I...
I will begin with the Mason-bee of the Pebbles. (This is the same insect as the Mason-bee of the Walls. Cf. "The Mason-bees": passim.-- Translator's Note.) The old nests are often...
THEIR HABITS. February has its sunny days, heralding spring, to which rude winter will reluctantly yield place. In snug corners, among the rocks, the great spurge of our district,...
It is time to start our analytical geometry. He can come now, my partner, the mathematician: I think I shall understand what he says. I have already run through my book and noticed...
Let us proceed to the rational prowess which has earned for the Necrophorus the better part of his renown and, to begin with, let us submit the case related by Clairville--that of...
Let us proceed to the rational prowess which has earned for the Necrophorus the better part of his renown and, to begin with, let us submit the case related by Clairville--that of...
A wasp-like garb of motley black and yellow; a slender and graceful figure; wings not spread out flat, when resting, but folded lengthwise in two; the abdomen a sort of chemist's r...
A wasp-like garb of motley black and yellow; a slender and graceful figure; wings not spread out flat, when resting, but folded lengthwise in two; the abdomen a sort of chemist's r...
The Halictus opens up another question, connected with one of life's obscurest problems. Let us go back five-and-twenty years. I am living at Orange. My house stands alone among th...
Everything happens sooner or later. When, through the low windows overlooking the garden of the school, my eye glanced at the laboratory, where the madder vats were steaming; when,...
Bees can flourish only when associated in large numbers, as a colony. In a solitary state, a single bee is almost as helpless as a new-born child; it is unable to endure even the o...
A dog has found a bone. He lies in the shade, holding it between his paws, and studies it fondly. It is his sacred property, his chattel. An Epeira has woven her web. Here again is...
After the Ammophilae, the paralysers who multiply their lancet-thrusts to destroy the influence of the various nerve-centres, excepting those of the head, it seemed advisable to in...
The Spider has a bad name: to most of us, she represents an odious, noxious animal, which every one hastens to crush under foot. Against this summary verdict the observer sets the...
Here the costume changes, not the manner of life. We find the same frequenting of dead bodies, the same capacity for the speedy liquefaction of the fleshy matter. I am speaking of...
To purge the earth of death's impurities and cause deceased animal matter to be once more numbered among the treasures of life there are hosts of sausage queens, including, in our...
The construction of my hive is such, as to permit me to transfer bees from the common hives, during all the season that the weather is warm enough to permit them to fly; and yet to...
I have wished for a few things in my life, none of them capable of interfering with the common weal. I have longed to possess a pond, screened from the indiscretion of the passers...
The lady-beetles comprise one family of small beetles, which is famous for the number of beneficial forms it includes. With but two exceptions the American forms feed upon other in...
Michelet {23} has told us how, as a printer's apprentice in a cellar, he established amicable relations with a Spider. At a certain hour of the day, a ray of sunlight would glint t...
The Epeira, who displays such astonishing industry to give her eggs a dwelling-house of incomparable perfection, becomes, after that, careless of her family. For what reason? She l...
Underneath the wasp's brown paper manor house, the ground is channeled into a sort of drain for the refuse of the nest. Here are shot the dead or weakly larvae which a continual in...