INSECT INGENUITY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 83, 8 April 1933, Page 9 (Supplement)

INSECT INGENUITY.

SOME REMARKABLE EXAMPLES,

The Carapoeus vernalis lays its eggs in email balls of dung, which it rolls irp for the purpose; but if it meets with a sheep pasture, it is wise enough to adopt what it finds ready made. The caterpillar of the common yellow butterfly fastens itself to a wall by means of a silk thread, which, to ensure its adhesion, is attached to a preparatory flat web laid on the stone. Furnished with a piece of muslin, instead of a stone, jt fastened the thread without any previous preparation. Many other insects, if deprived 'of the substances which they commonly use for their nests, will find substitutes in something else. On a similar principle of accommodation, many of them alter their plans, if they are disconcerted by an accident, to meet the exigencies of the new case. The end of a cylindrical cell, constructed for the head of a caterpillar, having been cut off, and there being no room to replace it properly, the animal changed its place and adapted it to receive its tail, making a new headpiece at the other end. In the beautiful geometrical web of the garden spider many guys arc required to keep it tense, and to prevent it being blown away by the wind. These cannot be fixed by any invariable rule; they depend on the forms and distances of the various supports. Moreover, it is easy to see that they are distributed 'always according to the necessities of the case. If.the position of a branch is altered, or a support is taken away, a new guy is carried to some convenient part. ' When the wind blows the spider may be seen strengthening his standing .rigging, exactly at the places where his building is in need of most support. Darwin remarked that a wasp, which he watched, attempted to carry, a large fly which it had caught. After , various attempts, in which the wind, by acting on the dead animal'a wings, ha'd impeded its flight, it alighted on the ground with, its prize/ snipped off the wings, and then bore away the carcase with-ease. After several trials other insects • have been driven to the necessity of biting away one part after another of their pTey, till they had reduced it to a size capable of entering their holes.