Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/727

Rh boards appear to be uninjured, but you can almost put your finger through them on account of the numerous channels and excavations of these apparently helpless little creatures.

The hardback—a black, chaferlike beetle—is very conspicuous after the rains have drenched the ground. They pass their larval stage in the earth and are driven forth in myriads. Not so disgusting as the cockroaches, they are yet very troublesome. They fly to the lights in your sitting room and drop upon your book as you are reading, or inside your collar. As for the ladies, they seem to be peculiarly open to such crawlers, as they have so much drapery, but the Creoles take hardbacks almost as a matter of course. We remember, however, one occasion at an evening entertainment when these beetles spoiled half the pleasure of the female part of the audience. They came in literally by thousands, and, flying in their blundering way at the gaslights, fell upon the people below. Evening dress was worn by the ladies, and this made the matter so much the worse. Some shuddered as they felt them crawling over their bare necks, and there was a continual movement of the hands to pick them off. When we state that the beetles were swept up next morning by pailfuls, some idea can be formed of their number.

Moths also appear in great numbers at this time. The flowers open, and those that are nocturnal perfume the air, bringing the insects to your garden. The white flowers shine in the darkness, but not so brightly as your gaslights, and it follows that many a sphinx comes in and commits suicide. Smaller insects also appear, so that what with one and another a table under the lamp is littered with hundreds of the dead and dying before you go to bed.

As these come indoors, some of their enemies follow. Centipeds, scorpions, and spiders leave the garden and look for the luscious cockroach in his new quarters. Web-making spiders are not very conspicuous, but those which hunt—veritable beasts of prey—lurk in every corner. To see one of them spring upon a cockroach is as interesting, perhaps, as the attack of a tiger upon an ox. And, when the spider has taken all he wants, the ants come and carry off the remainder. There they go, marching up the wall, a hundred tiny creatures carrying between them the monster corpse, probably weighing more than a thousand of its bearers. We have often wondered at such a sight, and thought of the difficulty of carrying a heavy weight under such circumstances.

Under the ground floor our cat had kittened, but we did not know of the fact until the first great downpour of the season. Waiting under cover until the rain abated, we saw puss come out bearing a little, half-drowned creature in her mouth, which she carried to a dry place. A torrent came pouring down the gutter