Cormafier Bandolito Directory 14
Page 08

It usually happens when the male of any species is killed during the breeding season, that the female soon procures another mate. There are, most likely, always a few unmated birds of both sexes, within a given range, and through these the broken links may be restored. Audubon or Wilson, I forgot which, tells a pair of fish-hawks, or ospreys, that built their nest in an ancient oak. The male was so zealous in the defence of the young that it actually attacked with beak and claw a person who attempted to climb into his nest, putting his face and eyes in great jeopardy. Arming himself with a heavy club, the climber felled the gallant bird to the ground and killed him. In the course of a few days, the female had procured another mate. But naturally enough the step-father showed none of the spirit and pluck in defence of the brood that had been displayed by the original parent. When danger was nigh, he was seen afar off, sailing around in placid unconcern.

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.

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