aves of
mullein and other plants.

Nearly three hundred species of _Coleoptera_, or beetles, occupy
similar positions. Almost any rotten log or stump when broken open
discloses a half dozen or more "horn" or "bess beetles," _Passalus
cornutus_ L., great, shining, clumsy, black fellows with a curved horn
on the head. They are often utilized as horses by country children,
the horn furnishing an inviting projection to which may be fastened,
by a thread or cord, chips and pieces of bark to be dragged about by
the strong and never lagging beast of burden. When tired of "playing
horse" they can make of the insect an instrument of music; for, when
held by the body, it emits a creaking, hissing noise, produced by
rubbing the abdomen up and down against the inside of the hard, horny
wing covers. This beetle passes its entire life in cavities in the
rotten wood on which it feeds, and when it wishes a larger or more
commodious home it has only to eat the more.

[Illustration: THIRTEEN-SPOTTED LADY BEETLE.]

The handsome and beneficial lady beetles winter beneath fallen leaves
or between and beneath the root leaves of the mullein and the thistle.
Our most common species, the thirteen-spotted lady beetle, _Megilla
maculata_ De G., is gregarious, collecting together by thousands on
the approach of cold weather, and lying huddled up like sheep until a
breath of spring gives them the signal to disperse. Snout beetles
galore can be found beneath piles of weeds near streams and the
borders of ponds or beneath chunks and logs in sandy places. All are
injurious, and the farmer by burning their hibernating places in
winter can cause their destruction in numbers. Rove beetles, ground
beetles, and many others live deep down in the vegetable mould beneath
old logs, where they are, no doubt, as secure from the ice king as if
they followed the swallow to the tropics.

Of the _Diptera_, or flies, but few forms winter in the perfect state,
yet the myriads of house flies and their kin, which next summer will
distract the busy house-wife, are represented in winter by a few
isolated individuals which creep forth occasionally from crevice or
cranny and greet us with a friendly buzz.

In mid-winter one may also see in the air swarms of small, gnat-like
insects. They belong to this order and live beneath the bark of
freshly fallen beech and other logs. On warm, sunny days they go forth
in numbers for a sort of rhythmical courtship; their movements