Whatever it was and wherever it came from I now determined to discover. The direction of the breeze was soon ascertained, and I started out to follow up the scent like a hound. I had walked about ten feet, with my nose tingling, when the odor suddenly left me. I paused at a large maple-tree, and awaited the trail. It came. This time it proved to be a hot scent, in truth. I needed only to follow my nose around the trunk of the tree at my elbow to be brought face to face with my game. It was no banana peel, nor pineapple, nor Russia-leather bag, but only a company of beetles sipping in the sun. A banquet of beetles! There were ten or a dozen of them, congregated about a hole in the maple trunk, all sipping at a furrow in the bark from which sap was oozing. At my approach they started to conceal themselves in the hole, but were most of them captured. They were about an inch in length, and of a purplish-brown color, and glistened like bronze.
I took my prizes home, and determined to announce my great discovery to the world in an early issue of some scientific paper, fully assured that I had made a "great find." Before accomplishing this purpose, however, I thought I would consult my "oracle," "Harris's Insects Injurious to Vegetation"—a most beautiful and valuable entomological work, by-the-way, which should be in every boy's library. There, on page forty-two, behold my odorous specimen, true to life! And what does Harris say about him? "They are nocturnal insects, and conceal themselves through the day in the crevices and hollows of trees, where they feed upon the sap that flows from the bark. They have the odor of Russia-leather, and give this out so powerfully that their presence can be detected by the scent alone at the distance of two or three yards from the place of their retreat. This strong smell suggested the name Osmoderma, 'scented skin,' given to these beetles by the French naturalists."
"Nocturnal" they may be, but that they are diurnal also I have many times proved. Almost any hot sunny day I am even now sure of my specimen upon a certain oozy cherry trunk near by, the presence even of one beetle being distinctly announced at a distance of ten feet.
There are two common species of these beetles, the present insect being the Osmoderma scabei, as given by Harris.
Mushroom Spore-prints
THE dusty puff-ball, floating its faint trail of smoke in the breeze from the ragged flue at its dome-shaped roof as from an elfin tepee, or perhaps enveloping our feet in its dense purple cloud as we chance to step upon it in the path, is familiar to every one—always enthusiastically welcomed by the small boy, to whom it is always a challenge for a kick, and a consequent demonstration of smoke worthy of a Fourth-of-July celebration.
A week ago this glistening gray bag, so free with its dust-puff at the slightest touch, was solid in substance and as white as cottage cheese in the fracture.