Insects Through The Seasons

Tells the success story of insects, discussing how the nearly one million known species have managed to survive and thrive in the varying climates and conditions of the earth, focusing on the cecropia moth as a basis for comparison.

Insect life cycles related to the four seasons

Buzz! Zip! Zoom! When the weather is warm, insects are everywhere. But what do they do in winter? Honeybees huddle in their hive. Monarch butterflies fly south. Woolly bear caterpillars hide under leaves and snow. This book shows what twelve different insects do to survive winter's chill.

Dear Girls and Boys: You are the same children all through the year, but you do not look just the same in winter and in summer. Your January clothes are different from those you wear in July. Perhaps the color of your skin is changed, too. It will be a few shades darker during the season of brightest sunshine if you are outdoors as much as you should be. You may have more freckles in summer, and perhaps your hair will be bleached by the sun to a little different shade. People do not do exactly the same things in spring as they do in the fall. Farmers plant seeds in the ground in the spring. In the fall they harvest food for winter use. Storekeepers show different things in their shop windows in summer and winter. Fashions change in games as well as in work. You like to play some games in summer that would not be nearly so pleasant in winter. People may be happy at any time in the year, and yet there is some difference in the kinds of happiness. The joy you have in looking at the first pussy willow or bluet or violet or other spring flower is not quite the same as that you feel in the jolly fall, when the chattering squirrel gathers his acorns and the trees let their gay leaves go fluttering down. If people do not look and act and feel just the same at different times of the year, what about the rest of the world? Well, a bobolink is the same bird in the fall as he is in the spring, although he does not look and act the same. In the spring he wears a suit of white and black and yellow, but in the fall his feathers show mostly olive and brown colors. He does not act the same, either. In the spring he sings a joyous bubbling song of many lovely, lively notes. In the fall he repeats, over and over again, one call that sounds as if he were answering the rest of the bobolinks, who are all making the same sociable sound. You will understand that there is not room in one book to tell about more than a few of the wonderful things in the world, for a book is small and the world itself is very large. There are indeed more interesting things in the world than have ever been described in all the books that have been printed. So suppose that you read the chapters in this book and think about them in a special way. Think about them as samples of what the world has to show. Then perhaps you will wish to look at the things of the world for yourselves. We wish you happy hours—all through the year. Your friends, Edith M. Patch Harrison E. Howe

Text and illustrations describe the insect life inhabiting a meadow during each season of the year.

Discusses how to find, identify, collect, and keep insects and suggests a variety of related activities organized by the seasons

The Dairy Farmer's Guide to the Universe Volume IV explores the environment, with the Midwest as an example, using traditional Jungian and Hillmanian approaches to deepen our connection with the land, the seasons, and insects. The Dalai Lama said how we relate to insects is very important for what it reveals much about a culture's relationship with the psyche and nature. . .” I had several Big Dreams in my last year of training at the Jung Institute in Zurich, including a single image dream of a typical Wisconsin pasture or meadow scene. This was the most beautiful landscape I have ever seen because it shown with an inner light, what Jung called a numinous or sacred dream. Since returning to Wisconsin I have let the mystery and power of that dream inspire me to learn and experience as much as possible about the land and the seasons of the upper Midwest, a process of turning a landscape into a soulscape. The means of doing this are presented in Land, Weather, Seasons, Insects: An Archetypal View, volume IV of The Dairy Farmer's Guide to the Universe-Jung, Hermes, and Ecopsychology. This involves the use of science, myths, symbols, dreams, Native American spirituality, imaginal psychology and the I Ching. It is an approach that can be used to develop a deep connection with any landscape, meeting one of the goals of ecopsychology. Carl Sagan believed that unless we can re-establish a sense of the sacred about the earth, the forces leading to its destruction will be too powerful to avert." —Dennis L. Merritt Front Cover: A Monarch butterfly on 'Buddleia' in Olbrich Gardens, Madison, Wisconsin. This "King of the Butterflies" is probably the best known of the North American butterflies and is the chosen image for the Entomological Society of America. The caterpillar feeds on the lowly milkweed, genius 'Asclepias, ' named after the Greek god of healing. The plant and the insect are toxic to most organisms. The insect is known for its uniquely long and complicated migrations. Photo by Chuck Heikkinen.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.