Pennsylvania Game News - October 2009 - 55

lined walkingstick (Anisomorpha buprestoides), have defensive glands and spray a noxious chemical that repels birds and other insects, not to mention curious entomologists, such as Thomas Eisner, who describes the spray as a “fine mist” that had a piercing stench. “My eyes hurt, as did my Some people keep walking sticks as pets, the most popular being the Indian stick insect — Carausius morosus — because it (or, rather, she) eats a wide variety of easily obtainable foods, such as lettuce and privet and thrives at room temperature. lungs when I got a whiff. This was evil stuff. I started coughing,” he writes in his book For Love of Insects. The species is nicknamed “musk mare” and “devil’s rider,” because the small male spends much of his time astride the much larger female. “They are not necessarily mating when thus found,” Eisner writes, “although the pairing is sexual and the two do eventually mate and produce eggs.” Many stick insects that drop their eggs on the ground, including the northern walkingstick, have eggs with a large food body called a capitulum, which contains substances attractive to ants, similar to some plants that have food bodies called “eliasomes” on their seeds to entice ants to take them back to their nests so they will have a more fruitful place to germinate and grow. In the case of stickinsects, the ants take the eggs back to their nests, cut off the capitulums, and feed them to their brood. Then the ants discard the rest of the eggs in their garbage, where they will hatch and live in the ant nest, safe from predators. Some species are even ant mimics. Luckily, northern walkingsticks have never released a bad-smelling liquid when I pick them up, as I do with the daddy long-legs, and show them off to visitors. Youngsters are particularly intrigued by both of them. I then place the northern walkingstick on a tree to demonstrate its excellent camouflage, and put the daddy long-legs back in the woods, knowing that both will soon be dying as the season of warmth ends. Books in Brief (Not available from the Game Commission.) The Official NRA Guide to Firearms Assembly: Rifles and Shotguns, Stoeger Books, 17603 Indian Head Hwy., Suite 200, Accokeek, MD 20601, 301-283-6300, www.stoegerbooks.com, 400 pp., softcover, $24.95 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. This book is a newly revised and completely redesigned edition of the National Rifle Association’s classic volume of rifle and shotgun disassembly instructions and exploded view technical drawings. With original contents drawn from the files of the NRA’s American Rifleman magazine, updated with entries for dozens of new firearms added, the new guide examines the history and mechanical details of hundreds of historic and popular rifles and shotguns. The book contains detailed instructions and accurate exploded-view diagrams that provide the information any collector, hunter or shooting enthusiast needs to successfully take firearms apart and put them back together. Step-by-step instructions ensure proper disassembly and detailed illustrations show precisely how parts interact. OCTOBER 2009 55

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Pennsylvania Game News - October 2009

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Game News - October 2009