HOW INSECTS BEHAVE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 39, 15 February 1905, Page 3

HOW INSECTS BEHAVE.

3IOKE BEETLES THAN ANT OTELES. ORDER OF INSECTS. They range in size from tke nrigbiy Hercules beetle six inches long to little fellows so small that a microscope is needed to learn anything about them. Some of them are ferocious indeed. Suen is the tiger beetle. Many of them., axe cannibals. Some were believed once to be possessors of everlasting life —every season rising from the ground phoenixlike. Fanciful stories have been, told about the Hercules beetle with his thiee-inch horn. He lives in South America. According to one writer, he over-indulges now and then in an inebriating cup. These immense insects, he deelar&s, sometimes gather on \he limbs of the mammee . tree to suck its juices. They nimbly rasp off the rind with their horns until they come to the juicy interior. The juice they drink until they become intoxicated and fall senseless to the ground. Another observer tells a tale which cape this. They saw off limbs, this one calmly asserts. The operation is accompanied by a noise exactly like that of a knife-grinder holding steel against the stone of his wheel. The noise, however, is as great as that of a knife-grinding plant employing a thousand grinders. There is more than one beetle armed with a disagreeable odour. One is the rove beetle. This beetle is said to be very numerous and very useful. The largest and most familiar member of the family is known as the "deviPs coach horse." This cognomen was suggested by his repulsive aspect, disgusting odour and generally ferocious nature. He is dull black, narrow and a little over an inch long. One may often see him scuttling along a pathway, ever ready to accept a challenge. A walking stick set down near him is sufficient to stir hhri up. Instantly he faee3 around to give battle, opening a formidable pair of sicklo shaped jaws and bending the under part of his body over his back, as if to suggest that, like a scorpion, he carries a stmg in his tail. There is no Ftincr. however, but a weapon almost as effective This is nothing more than a pair of soft yellow vesicles, which can be protruded at will. From them floats a most abominable odour. He needs only a small amount of provocation to bring his battery into action. He is not the only beetle, oddly armed. There is the bombardier. He is small, but carries about with him a piece of artillery. It is not exactly what migh* be termed a. "Long Tom,* , but it migh! be described as a "stern chaser." Hi? provides a liquid -which is so volatile that when it comes in contact with the open air it explodes with a slight report, leaving a cloud of thin smoke. This fluitl is capable of staining the human akin black, and so deeply that it cannot bi :*ot rid of for several days. It will alsn burn. When a number of these beetles are found together and they are disturbed the scene suggests a battlefield in miniature. A fusilade will be continued for some time. The enemy whicl. ■he little fellow most fears Is one of his own kind, a larger cam bus. The big fellow is heard advancing from the rear. With jaws extended, he runs rapidly towards his victim. Before him an extended his antennae feeling for his prey. The little fellow stands hi? ground until carabns is almost upon bim. Suddenly the head of the large beet!. is hidden in a little cloud of vaponr anil a tiny report is heard. A second repir* ouickly follows the first. The big beetle starts back in astcmishmeaL His antennae ar-p swell to wave above the cloud and swing to the rear. Like the dot: retreating with his tail between his legs, the beetle has assumed a different attitude toward his enemy, and this itthe signal of the change. Before hf recovers from his ludicrous predicament he has fallen toward the rear almost as rapidly a,s he had previously advanced, •and his prey has escaped. A MATHEMATICAL BEETLE. One beetle is credited with having solved a geometrical problem Ion:; be/ore man did it. Whatever his everyday name may be his scientific is Rhyuehitess betulae. L. Huygens, the great mathematical genius, was the first one to e:;p!oit the problem in his "Horologium Oseillatorium," in lt>73- The little beetle in making a case for her egss has learn ed how to adapt to her purpose the two curves of higher mathematics, the involute and evolute. The problem is that of constracting from a given involute the corresponding evolute, a problem which involves a most complicated combination of differential calculus and geometry. Kvery spring-, as soon as she emergr>s from the ground, she solves it. i.-limbs a birch tree and picks her way "ut to one of the tendor voting leaves. Of this she intends to make a covering for her offspring. First she carefuHj examines the edge of the leaf. After walking along it a short distance she suddenly stops and begins to cut the outlines of what is to be the cradle for her little ones. She starts at the upper margin of one side of the leaf and cuts vn S shaped curve, the inner end of wbieh touches the central rib. Then she makes a siiglit cut into the main vein to reduce the flow of sap. and cuts across the other half of the leaf a corresponding, but more horizontal, curve, This terminates a little higher on the midrib. Carefully going- over the entire cut she trims the edges and cuts through sonic veins still connected. Then she takes her place onc-e more at the starting point of the whole operation, the edge of the leaf with her elawi, shp walks downward and then ho tke middle, rolling it before her. In less than two minutes shy has rolled one-half into a sort of cornucopia opening downward. After a short repast, very prudently taken from parts close to the main ribs, the little worker hastens to roll up the other side over the cornucopia just formed. This time she uses her legs in a manner exactly the reverse of her first operation. Now, after thirty mimrtes' work, the main preparations have been completed for depositing her eggs. If the leaf were to be unrolled now it would be found that the exterior margin and the "S" curve cut by the beetle bore 'the same relation to each other as the involute and evolute curves. The Ettle mathematician has managed to cut her "S" curve so that the length of the cut from the beginning to any point which may be selected and the perpendicular distance from the margin of the leaf to that point are always the same. The little builder's problem is not finished with the completion of the first curve. She must fashion the one on the other side of the r : b so that it will wind truly over the first half. — —-_