Louise Jamison

“ Blow Fly had been there, she would have put her eggs on that meat, screen or no screen. She is a most determined body and she can drop her eggs through the finest mesh, if she makes up her mind to do it.”
“Is Mrs. Blow Fly that big, buzzing, blue-bodied thing that is such a botheration?” asked Ruth.
“She’s big and blue, and she buzzes, or talks, with her wings, as we all do,” answered Mrs. House Fly, with dignity, “but she isn’t a thing. She’s a fly. There are hundreds of different kinds of flies, I’d like you to understand. The kind like me live in houses, but some prefer stables. ”

“ My mate wants me.” And a flying leap carried him quite away.
“There, we are rid of the old grandfather,” said the cicada, “and now what can I do for you?”
“Tell me your real name if it is not locust,” answered Ruth.
“It certainly is not locust. I’ve been called a harvest fly, though I am not a fly either. I’m a cicada, and nothing else, and I belong to the order of bugs.” ”

“ Of course, they are not; a fat grub couldn’t be, you know. But let me tell you, there are few things as smart as a tiger beetle baby. I say,” he added, looking full at Ruth, “have you ever seen the hole he digs? It is often a foot deep, while he is less than an inch long. He has only his jaws and fore legs to work with too. Yet he piles the earth on his flat head as if it were the easiest thing in the world, and then, climbing to the top, he throws it off, and is ready for another load.” ”

“ But if certain insects were left without other creatures to eat and keep them down, the poor old earth would soon be bare once more. So you see there must be laws to fix all these things. Nature balances one set of creatures against the other, so there will not be too many of any kind.”
Ruth had listened in open-eyed astonishment. Surely this was a very wise grasshopper.
“You know a great deal,” she managed to say at last.
“Yes, I do,” was the answer. “I heard two men say the things I’ve just told you. They were walking across this meadow, and I listened and remembered. ”

“ You never hear caterpillars say, ‘I can’t do this, and will some one please help me to change my skin, or some one spin my cocoon for me?’ No, they do these things for themselves, and ask no advice about them either. Still I do believe one can’t be too careful about cocoons, for once you are in one and asleep you can’t defend yourself. It is much better to make them safe to begin with. That was what I thought when I made mine. I enclosed it in a leaf, and then to make sure the leaf wouldn’t fall in the Winter winds, I fastened it to a branch of the tree with a thread of silk. ”

“ Another thing, I know better than to call a human baby an egg, but, would you believe me, there are lots of people who think our babies are eggs. I have heard them called so. Now the reason we are so careful of our babies is because if there were no babies there would be no ants, and that brings me to the queen, for without her there would be no babies, because there would be no eggs, and babies always begin by being eggs. ”

“ Well, birds are pests, there is no doubt about it, and if it hadn’t been for them we insects would have possessed the earth long ago, but you forget, we always choose a place that is nearly the colour of ourselves, and we look so much like our surroundings that it would take a sharp eye to find us. We are not brightly coloured, as a rule, like the butterflies, or if we wear gay colours at all it is usually on our hind wings, which we hide under the fore wings. ”

“ Sometimes there are three hundred of them, and you can imagine what a lively family they are when they hatch.”
“I should like to see them,” said Ruth, for it was quite impossible for her to imagine so many baby crickets together.
“Well, it is a sight, I assure you,” answered the little cricket. “Did you ever come across my cousin the mole cricket? She is very large and quite clever. She makes a wonderful home with many halls around her nest. She is always on guard too so that no one may touch her precious eggs. ”

“ Sometimes we sting the leaf, sometimes the twig, and sometimes the stem, and always just the kind of cradle we intended grows from it, and the egg we laid there hatched into a baby grub, ready to eat the sap.”
“Then you know about the one on the willow tree,” put in Ruth. “The one the housefly told about. It grows like a pine cone, and is made by some one with a dreadfully long name.”
“That is something entirely different,” answered the gall fly. “We do not pretend to make all the galls, you understand. Some are made by insects belonging to quite another order. The willow tree cone is one. ”

“ Ruth’s eyes were big with questions. Miss Apis saw and continued:
“They did this by moving their wings rapidly as if they were flying, and when many did it at the same time the good air was driven around the hive and the bad air out. Then, of course, there had to be sentinels to speak to every bee who passed in, and make sure she had the right to enter, for human people are not our only robbers. There are flies that look much like us, but ask them to show their pollen baskets, and they can’t do it. ”

“ Madame Vespa was saying, “I suppose we wasps can scarcely be called general favourites. We have a sting, you see, but, my friends, that was intended for laying eggs, and if we use it on people it is because they meddle in our business. It is our way. We will sting those who bother us. Now, in our community—for we are social wasps—the female is unquestionably the better half. We have our rights and we insist on them. My mate was a good-for-nothing fellow, like the rest of them. ”

“ Ruth whispered to her usual confidant, Belinda.
“Now to begin,” went on the sphinx, “you know, I suppose, that we belong to the order Lepidoptera, which means the scale wings, because the colour of our wings is made by scales so tiny that they are really like dust. We are divided into moths, butterflies, and skippers, and all of us are messengers for the flowers, carrying the precious pollen from blossom to blossom. Our children are generally enemies to the plants. ”

“ So you can see why lacewing babies are friends to the farmer and the fruit grower, for aphides kill plants and trees, and young lacewings kill aphides. They can eat and eat and eat, and never grow tired of aphides. Indeed, they really deserve their name—aphislion. 81When they do stop eating it is to fall into their long sleep, but first they weave a cocoon as beautiful as a seed pearl, in which they change into a most lovely creature—one like me. ”

“ We hibernate like many animals.”
“But you must have been eggs in the beginning,” said Ruth. “The oil beetle told me that all insects begin as eggs. And will you please tell me how a butterfly knows the right kind of plant to lay her eggs on? It always seems to be just the one her caterpillars like to eat. She doesn’t eat it herself.” ”

“ When I move underground I push the earth before me, and, as it has to go somewhere, it rises up.”
“What do you push with?” asked Ruth, sitting down in front of the mole.
“With my snout and forepaws,” he answered, “what else? The muscle which moves my head is very powerful, and you can see how broad my forepaws are, and, also, that they turn outward. They help to throw back the earth as I make my way forward. I have ever so many sharp little teeth, too, and my fur lies smooth in all directions, so it never rumples and——”
“Do come on,” interrupted the cicada; “that fellow isn’t interesting.” ”

“ Tumble Bug. “Why, our ball is the most important thing in the world. This was a big one, too. We made it in Farmer Brown’s barnyard, and then I laid my eggs in it, and we rolled it all the way here. Of course it grew on the road, and I couldn’t have moved it alone, but my mate helped me. He always helps. Indeed it seems to me tumble bugs are the only husbands in the insect world who care about their children’s future.”
“Now I know,” said Ruth, who had been thinking very hard. “You think so much of your balls because they hold your eggs. ”

“ My first children are always workers, and after a number of them are hatched I can give my whole time to laying eggs.”
“But when the nest is once done?” began Ruth, who had forgotten her fear entirely and was now quite close to Madame Vespa.
“The nest done?” repeated the fiery lady. “You should know that our nest is never done. New cells must be added, old walls gnawed down, and fresh ones built up to enclose larger combs. Indeed, we are never idle. We ventilate as the bees do, and we have sentinels too. Later in the season I lay eggs that hatch out drones, and last of all, the queen eggs. ”

“ When the eggs hatch, the babies eat the pollen and nectar they find around them. I was just such a baby, and, being a gentleman, I haven’t much to do. I shall probably marry a queen some day, but now I simply play in the sunshine. We bumble bees belong to the social branch of the family, but there are many bees who live alone. They all follow trades. There is the carpenter, who isn’t furry like us, but black and shiny. She can bore right into solid wood and make cells for her eggs. ”

“ It was only after the white settlers came West and planted potatoes that we found out how much nicer a potato leaf is than a sandspur leaf, so of course we ate potato leaves. We came East, travelling from patch to patch, and by 1874 we had conquered the country to the Atlantic Ocean. That shows what a smart family we must be, and I will tell you how we do. We lay our eggs on the potato leaves, and our children find their dinner all ready, and, as they hatch with splendid appetites, they get right to work. ”

“ Sometimes I go into the house when Winter comes and sing by the fire at night, but my real home is in the earth. I dig a hole in a sunny spot and Mrs. Cricket lays her eggs at the bottom, and fastens them to the ground with a kind of glue. ”

“ She lays an egg in the gash; then goes to another twig, and does the same thing, until she has laid as many eggs as she wishes. When her babies hatch, they do not look at all like their gauzy-winged little gray mother, nor do they care for sun or air. In fact, they never stir from their cells. They can eat, though, and the sap of the tree is their food.”
“You all seem to think a good deal of eating,” said Ruth. ”

“ We have no sucking beak as the bugs have, but we have two sets of horny jaws, which move sideways, and not up and down. These are to bite roots, stems, and leaves of plants, so most of our order live on vegetable food and are enemies to the farmer, but some of us are his friends, for we eat the insects that injure his crops. Our children are called grubs. Some of them make a sort of glue, with which they stick together earth or bits of wood for a cocoon; others make tunnels in tree trunks or wood and transform in them. ”

“ Sawyer.
“Now, they are beginning again,” thought Ruth, but the elater paid no attention to Mrs. Sawyer.
“As I said before,” he repeated, “we have reason to be proud, for though we build no cities, like ants, wasps, and bees, and make no honey or wax, or have, in fact, any special trades, yet we are interesting and beautiful. The ancient Egyptians thought some of us sacred and worshipped us.” ”

“ We swallowtails all believe in dressing well. We are butterflies, not moths, but though I am so beautiful, I serve some very humble plants. I carry the precious pollen for them. My children, I’m afraid, will not be so helpful, but what can one do? I happen to like honey, but they prefer the leaves of parsley, carrot, celery, and such things. They have large appetites, too.”
“Everything seems to have an appetite,” said Ruth.
“Well, my children will be able to eat, I can tell you. See, I have laid my eggs on this bed of parsley. Ah! there’s a larva now. ”

“ Spider’s indignation made her look quite fierce.
“They do not,” was the decided answer. 37“All spiders are spinners, but not all are web makers.”
Ruth looked puzzled.
“You see,” explained Mrs. Spider, “it all depends upon the way they catch their prey. Spider habits are as different as their looks. Some like the sun, others prefer the shade. Some live in the forest, and others with the house people. Many make their home in the bark of trees, and under stones.”
“I’ve seen that kind,” interrupted Ruth, eagerly, “and when you lift up the stone they run awfully fast. ”