Jeannette Augustus Marks

“ Beetles have hard wing covers—see these little shell-like casings?—to cover the more delicate wings underneath. The June-bug has wing covers, too, but it never keeps its best wings tucked in. They are always hanging out in a crumpled way. These bugs eat the leaves of the trees, and their children, little, fat, white grubs with horny heads, nibble, as they crawl around under the surface of the earth, the tender roots of the grass and the strawberry plants."
"Why, Ben, you've told me more already," said Tom, "than any dullard like me could ever learn from a book. ”

“ There is not room in one house for two queens; one must go, and it is usually old Mrs. Honey-Bee. Surrounded by part of the family, she flies out of the old home in search of a new place. If she is living in some one's garden a new hive is all ready for her, and she soon settles down again to her egg-laying, while the workers hurry to bring in food for the new babies. If there is no hive ready for this exiled family, it swarms in a tree or any other good place it happens to find. ”

“ Well, in about ten days they find a nicely sheltered spot and spin a little silken cocoon about themselves. In this they stay for a couple of weeks, while they are changing into grown-up lace-wings. When they are finished they cut a round door in their silken house, spread their gauzy wings, stretch their delicate green bodies, rub their eyes in wonder at the sunny world, and fly away to lay some little eggs on slender stems just like those which their mothers laid and from which they came. ”

“ That bees should build chimneys was more than they could believe!
"Goodness!" said Jimmie, "if that is what a short-tongued bee can do, what can a long-tongued bee do?"
"They are very clever. Some are carpenters, some masons, some miners, some tailors. The leaf-cutter bee makes a neat home, covering the walls with pretty, green leaves. First she digs a tunnel in a suitable branch of wood; then she goes to a rosebush, cuts out an oval piece of a rose leaf, and arranges it smoothly on the walls of the tunnel; cuts other oval pieces and puts them on, fastening the edges neatly together. ”

“ They are like bees in their cleverness, knowing how to tunnel in wood, dig deep pits in the ground, or make nests of mud. Mr. Kellogg, a very wise man, and young to be so wise, tells of one interesting little wasp, called the thread-waisted sand-digger, which lives in California in the salt-marshes. These marshes are covered by plants, but in between are little smooth places covered with a glistening crust of salt. It is in these open spots that Mrs. Sand-Digger makes her home. She has strong jaws, and with these she cuts out a neat little circle of salty crust. ”

“ I found out about some naughty, lazy ants, sir. Instead of taking care of their own homes and hunting up their own food, they go out to war against another kind of ant, which is living quietly and attending to its own business. All the grown-up ants these little fighters either kill or frighten so that they run away as fast and as far as their legs will carry them. Then these lazy ants steal the eggs and the babies. Some of them they eat on the way home, but most of them they carry to their underground galleries. There they take good care of them until they are grown up. ”

“ But there's a great difference in the mouths of insects: some are made for biting, some for lapping, some for piercing, and some for sucking. The butterfly, which lives on nectar in the depths of the flowers, has a long, coiled tube which scientists call a proboscis. This it unrolls and buries in the throat of the flower. Mrs. Mosquito has a file and pump, for it is she, and not her husband, who does all the singing and biting. The male mosquito has nothing more than a mouth for sucking nectar. And I told you about the biting jaws of the locust with which it nibbles grass and leaves. ”

“ The queen ant is not a real queen ruling a little kingdom; she is the mother ant, and lays all the eggs. She is well cared for and protected by the workers. These are the active little ants who do the work. They are happy, too, running about, digging new passageways, clearing the paths to their front doors, and bringing in food, which they store in their granaries. Some ants, sir, build their tunnels very deep underground. A doorway opens into a wide gallery, from which others branch and wind their way down into the dark ground. ”

“ When it is five days old some jelly is put in the room with it and a roof is built over its head. For seven long days the baby stays here all alone, then it gnaws its way out, and, wonder of wonders, we have a queen instead of a worker! ”

“ Reece, "has a fly?"
"Four," answered Jimmie.
"No," corrected the guide; "a real fly has only two wings. In the place of the second pair they have queer little knobbed rods which are called balancers—something like the out-riggers on your scull, Jim. These steer and steady the fly's body."
"What makes a fly bite?" asked Hope.
"They do not bite, child. A beetle or a grasshopper can really bite, because beetles and grasshoppers have heavy, horny jaws, toothed on the edge, with which to do it. But a fly has fine, sharp-pointed jaws. ”

“ Is it any wonder that these workers, who have so much to do and so many cares from morning until night, die very young? The queen may live for two or three years, but the workers do not live longer than six or eight weeks."
"Goodness me!" said Jimmie, "I wouldn't have believed there was any insect on the face of the earth as clever as those bees! If insects were all like that, I'd want to know about every one of them. ”

“ When the eggs hatch out they are funny-looking fellows, long, tapering bodies with a big head end. At the other end are two little prongs. This baby, like some other babies, is never quiet, but squirms and wriggles so that it is called a wriggler. Upon its thick head are two little tufts of hair. These it waves every moment, so that all the food which comes its way will go into its hungry little mouth. One of the prongs at the other end of the body is an air-tube, so that the baby mosquito has to stand on its head to breathe. ”

“ You remember, the plant-lice live on plants, and with their sucking beaks pump the sap from the plants. The aphis-lions crawling over the plants come across the little aphid. Quick as a wink they stick their sharp claws in the soft body of the plant-louse and drink the blood with their sharp-pointed jaws. They are very fond of eggs, too, and Mamma Lace-Wing is careful of her eggs, because she knows the mischievous ways of her children. ”

“ Yes, the guest-bees, who visit their friends the year round, let their hosts wait upon them, and never help to keep anything clean or to collect nectar and pollen. Mrs. Guest-Bee even lays her eggs in Mrs. Bumblebee's nest, and when the guest babies hatch out, it is not their mother, but Mrs. Bumblebee, who feeds them from the food she has stored up for her own children. The guest-bees are so lazy that no little baskets are found on their legs for carrying pollen. ”

“ What a strange world it would be if there were no insects in it! We should have no little crickets chirping in the sunny fields or in the dark corners and cracks of our houses. There would be no katydids singing all night, no clacking of the locusts in the tall grass along dusty roads, no drowsy hum of bees. There would be no little ants and big ants digging out underground tunnels and carrying the grains of sand as far from their doorways as possible. ”

“ Yes, every one, my son, that lives long enough, just as surely as a boy will turn into a man. The butterfly lays the egg, and after the egg has been quiet for a while out comes a little worm; the worm spins the cocoon, and out of the cocoon comes a perfect moth, or butterfly. ”

“ The wedding journey is a picnic for hungry birds. Just think of finding such a mass of juicy morsels at one time. They fly into the crowd and eat as many of the ants as they can. But many escape. At last they become exhausted. ”

“ We wish you to enjoy all the frolics, to feel how jolly it is to be out-of-doors in the woods and fields and lakes, climbing, canoeing, picnicing, and swimming.
But still more, we hope that you will realize that more wonderful than the most wonderful fairy story ever told is the marvel of the created life of these little insects; we want you to come to know something of their joys and troubles; we want you to learn how to be kind to them, and how they may be useful to you; and we want you to find out for yourselves the places they take in the great plan of creation. ”

“ At the end of two days out of the pupa skin comes a grown-up mosquito. If it is a Mrs. Mosquito, she promptly begins to bite people and to carry about fevers or malaria from person to person. The bite of a mosquito may sometimes be as dangerous as the bite of a rattlesnake."
The children had been slapping the mosquitoes buzzing about on the piazza. "And now," said the guide, "before we go into supper, I will tell you a real and a true story. Mosquitoes sometimes carry sickness from one person to another until it spreads throughout a large city. ”

“ Whenever the honey-bees want to make a queen they know just how to do it. You know, a queen is a very important person. A bee queen is like an ant queen, not the ruler of a kingdom, but the mother of many, many children. Since a queen is a person of such note, she must have a larger room than an ordinary worker, so they set to work and tear down the partitions between two or three cells. When the egg in the large room hatches the white larva is fed bee jelly, just like the little worker larva, but it is never given any pollen or honey. ”

“ It's not an easy matter to get in when the bees are not looking, but she manages it quite often; and when the little larvas hatch out of the eggs, they eat the wax and the mischief is done. When Mother Bee-Moth is seen the bees rush upon her and sting her to death. They have good cause to hate her, for the wax is precious, hard to make and to mould into the little cells. ”

“ The children, Hope and Betty, Jack, Peter, and Jimmy, Mrs. Reece and Ben Gile, were gathered on the edge of the pond, their packs in the canoes, their paddles at bow and stern. Other guides had taken the food and tents ahead the day before. Their friends had gathered to bid them good-bye, and finally, amid the farewells, they were off, Jimmie in a canoe by himself, Jack and Peter paddling Mrs. Reece, and Ben Gile with the two little girls. Everybody was so excited that all talked at once, and nobody could hear any one else. ”

“ Well, it's a first cousin which lives in the trees and loves its tree home so much, like the sensible little fellow it is, that it sings 'Tr-e-e-e, tr-e-e-e,' as fast as it can trill all summer long. But it is very harmful to the tree, because when egg-laying time comes it cuts a long slit in the trees in which to lay its eggs. Just a minute!" The old man shifted the position of the baker, and out came such a good odor of cookies that all the children sniffed with delight. "Here, Jack," he said, to a brown little fellow in ragged clothes and bare feet, "you have a singer in your box." ”

“ Engraver-Beetle make a long tunnel under the bark. Mrs. Engraver makes notches along the sides, and in every notch lays an egg. When the babies hatch, each one begins a tunnel for itself, running out straight from the long one. ”