Our Common Insects A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, Gardens and Houses by A. S. Packard

Author:A. S. Packard [Packard, A. S. (Alpheus Spring)]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Insects
Published: 2008-01-22T16:00:00+00:00

Harvestman.

* * *

CHAPTER XII.

BRISTLE-TAILS AND SPRING-TAILS.

The Thysanura, as the Poduras and their allies, the Lepismas, are called, have been generally neglected by entomologists, and but few naturalists have paid special attention to them.[9] Of all those microscopists who have examined Podura scales as test objects, we wonder how many really know what a Podura is?

In preparing the following account I have been under constant indebtedness to the admirable and exhaustive papers of Sir John Lubbock, in the London "Linnæan Transactions" (vols. 23, 26 and 27). Entomologists will be glad to learn that he is shortly going to press with a volume on the Poduras, which, in distinction from the Lepismas, to which he restricts the term Thysanura, he calls Collembola, in allusion to the sucker-like tubercle situated on the under side of the body, which no other insects are known to possess.

The group of Bristle-tails, as we would dub the Lepismas in distinction from the Spring-tails, we will first consider. They are abundant in the Middle States under stones and leaves in forests, and northward are common in damp houses, while one beautiful species that we have never noticed elsewhere, is our "cricket on the hearth," abounding in the chinks and crannies of the range of our house, and also in closets, where it feeds on sugar, etc., and comes out like cockroaches, at night, shunning the light. Like the cockroaches, which it vaguely resembles in form, this species loves hot and dry localities, in distinction from the others which seek moisture as well as darkness. By some they are called "silver witches," and as they dart off, when disturbed, like a streak of light, their bodies being coated in a suit of shining mail, which the arrangement of the scales resembles, they have really a weird and ghostly look.

The most complicated genus, and the one which stands at the head of the family, is Machilis, one species of which lives in the Northern and Middle States, and another in Oregon. They affect damp places, living under leaves and stones. They all have rounded, highly arched bodies, and large compound eyes, the two being united together. The maxillary palpi are greatly developed, but the chief characteristics are the two-jointed stylets arranged in nine pairs along each side of the abdomen, reminding us of the abdominal legs of Myriopods. The body ends in three long bristles, as in Lepisma.

The Lepisma saccharina of Linnæus, if, as is probable, that is the name of our common species, is not uncommon in old damp houses, where it has the habits of the cockroach, eating cloths, tapestry, silken trimmings of furniture, and doing occasional damage to libraries by devouring the paste, and eating holes in the leaves and covers of books.

In general form Lepisma may be compared to the larva of Perla, a net-veined Neuropterous insect, and also to the narrow-bodied species of cockroaches, minus the wings. The body is long and narrow, covered with rather coarse scales, and ends in three many jointed anal

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