United States or Bangladesh ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I do not know enough of her habits to say anything more about her. These botanical details tell us that the Crioceres, which hatch early, in the middle of summer, have no reason to fear famine. If the Lily-beetle can no longer find her favourite plant, she can browse upon Solomon's seal and smilax, not to mention the lily of the valley and, I dare say, a few others of the same family.
After a brief period of summer freedom, the various Crioceres seek their winter quarters and go to earth under the dead leaves. The Lily-beetle dresses herself: with her ordure she makes herself a cosy gown, an infamous garment, it is true, but an excellent protection against parasites and sunstroke. The weaver of fæcal cloth has hardly any imitators.
An exclusive taste for the asparagus, one of the foremost representatives of the Smilaceæ, characterizes the two other Crioceres, those eager exploiters of the cultivated asparagus. Apart from these two plants, the two Crioceres refuse absolutely everything, even when in July they come up from the earth with the famishing stomachs which the long fast of the metamorphosis has given them.
If I do not make a careful selection when I am stocking my wire-gauze-covers, if I go to work at random in picking the branches colonized with larvæ, I obtain very few adult Crioceres; nearly all of them are resolved into a cloud of Midges.
Whenever Crioceres abound, the Midges that reduce them arrive in numbers; when Crioceres become rare, the Midges decrease, but are always ready to return in masses and repress a surplus of the others during a return of prosperity. Under its thick mantle of ordure the grub of the Lily-beetle escapes the troubles so fatal to its cousin of the asparagus.
Well, the Rhynchites have told us that the build does not determine the instincts, that the tools do not decide the trade. And now, yes, the Crioceres come and add their testimony. I question three of them, all common, too common, in my paddock. At the proper season, I have them before my eyes, without searching for them, whenever I want to ask them for information.
Word Of The Day