busiest time of their lives, as
all are on errands of love to their kind, but of mischief to the
agriculturist.

When the May Flower--"O commendable flowre and most in minde"--blooms,
and the willows hang out their golden catkins, we shall hear the hum of
the wild bee, and the insect hunter will reap a rich harvest of
rarities. Seek now on the abdomen of various wild bees, such as Andrena,
for that most eccentric of all our insects, the Stylops Childreni. The
curious larvae of the Oil beetle may be found abundantly on the bodies of
various species of Bombus, Andrena and Halictus, with their heads
plunged in between the segments of the bee's body.

[Illustration: 217. The Comma Butterfly.]

[Illustration: 218. Tachina.]

The beautiful moth, Adela, with its immensely long antennae, may be seen,
with other smaller moths, feeding on the blossoms of the willow. The
Ants wake from their winter's sleep and throw up their hillocks, and the
"thriving pismire" issues from his vaulted galleries constructed in some
decaying log or stump, while the Angle worms emulate late their
six-footed neighbors. During the mild days of March, ere the snow has
melted away--

"The dandy Butterfly,
All exquisitely drest,"

will visit our gardens. Such are various kinds of Vanessa and Grapta
(Fig. 217, G. c-argenteum[30]). The beautiful Brephos infans flies
before the snow disappears.

"The Gnat, old back-bent fellow,
In frugal frieze coat drest,"

will celebrate the coming of Spring, with his choral dance. Such is
Trichocera hyemalis, which may be seen in multitudes towards twilight on
mild evenings. Many flies are now on the wing, such as Tachina (Fig.
218) and its allies; the four spotted Mosquito, Anopheles
quadrimaculatus, and the delicate species of Chironomus, whose males
have such beautifully feathered antennae, assemble in swarms. Now is the
time for the collector to turn up stones and sticks by the river's side
and in grassy damp pastures, for Ground beetles (Carabidae), and to
frequent sunny paths for the gay Cicindela and the Bombylius fly, or
fish in brooks and pools for water beetles and various larvae of
Neuroptera and Diptera; while many flies and beetles are attracted to
freshly cut maples or birches running with sap; indeed, many insects,
rarely found elsewhere, assemble in quantities about the stumps of these
trees, from which the sap oozes in March and April.

In April the injurious insects in the Northern