June bug

“ Another insect pest which feeds on the leaves is the June bug or May beetle. It works mainly at night and feeds on the newest leaves. It is seldom seen and usually disappears about the time when the operator becomes aware of its presence. ”

“ If there was anything Elizabeth Eliza had a terror of it was a June-bug. She had heard that they had a tend [Pg 457] ency to get into the hair. One had been caught in the hair of a friend of hers, who had long, luxuriant hair. But the legs of the June-bug were caught in it like fishhooks, and it had to be cut out, and the June-bug was only extricated by sacrificing large masses of the flowing locks. ”

“ Anybody who knows anything about bugs and beetles knows that a June bug isn’t a bug but is a beetle, and has two different names—one of them being a June beetle and the other a May beetle, depending upon whichever month of the year it flies around in the country where you live. ”

“ The swallow-tail, under its form of butterfly, is not first small, then medium, then large. When, for the first time, it opens its wings and takes flight, it is as large as it ever will be. When it comes out from under ground, where it lived as a grub, when for the first time it appears in the daylight, the June bug is such as you know it. There are little cats, but no little swallow-tails nor little June bugs. After the metamorphosis, an insect is what it will be to the end. ”

“ The bunny said that would be very kind. So the June Bug fluttered his wings and whistled on his hind legs and hundreds of other bugs buzzed up to see what was the matter. “We must make a ladder of grass stems so Uncle Wiggily can get out of the pit,” said the big June Bug.
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Buzzing their wings, and weaving with their legs, the kind June Bugs soon made a long, strong grass ladder. ”

“ They do not, however, restrict themselves to caterpillars, for they will attack and devour a perfect June-bug when fresh from the pupa state and soft, with apparently the same relish as their special dainty, a fat Cut-worm. In the larval state they are equally rapacious; they lurk in holes in the ground or under sticks and stones in the day-time, and only leave their retreats as night draws on to go in search of prey. ”

“ It is better to be a young June bug than an old bird of paradise. ”

“ They are a golden brown color.
They blunder about, making a great buzz with their horny wings. They hit their heads on walls and panes of glass. Some people are afraid of them. That is foolish, for they can do no harm to them.
These June bugs hide all day in the shade. They do not like the sun. It is no wonder there are so many of them, as each mother lays forty eggs. The larvæ do much damage by eating plant roots.
Watch June beetles to see how they lift their wing-covers when about to fly. Look well at the folding of the inner wings. ”

“ When they invade a field, the earth, undermined in all directions, loses its firmness and yields under the pressure of the foot. One year, in the department of the Sarthe, the ravages became so serious that it was necessary to undertake a systematic destruction of the pest. The June-bug was hunted on a large scale, and sixty thousand decaliters were gathered in, each decaliter containing about five thousand insects. ”

“ Those little June bugs are of a different kind. They will always remain the same. Never will they grow and become common June bugs, any more than a cat would grow into a tiger, which it resembles so much. ”

“ Consider well the proportions of things. It is better to be a young June bug than an old bird of paradise. ”

“ A large weevil (Arrhenodes septentrionalis) , which lives under the bark of the white oak, appears in June and July. The Chinch bug begins its terrible ravages in the wheat fields. The various species of Chrysopa or Lace-winged flies, appear during this month.
The Insects of July.
During mid-summer the bees and wasps are very busy building their nests and rearing their young. ”

“ The grub-worms which work about the roots of plants are, in the adult state, the June-bugs or cock-chafers which fly about our lights in the spring and early summer, and which themselves do considerable damage by eating leaves of trees and bushes.
Orchards and small fruits suffer heavily from insect pests, both on account of the direct loss and on account of the expensive treatment. There are several hundred insects which ravage fruit trees, attacking the roots, trunk, foliage and fruit. ”

“ But it does not make this humming sound for the mere love of hearing it; its object is to snap up the twilight-flying insects as it passes [237] with distended beak. Big beetles sporting in the evening air, June-bugs, and other plump winged creatures disappear in the viscous gullet, while small butterflies, moths, gnats, and mosquitoes become entangled by the dozen in the fatal glue. If the game is large, the bird swallows it at once, whole and still alive; if small, it waits until it has caught a certain number and then swallows them all in one mouthful. ”

“ Its song is now remarkable among the full choir for sweetness, loudness, and long continuance. Its food at this time consists of aphides, caterpillars, and other small insects which infest roses and fruit-trees; it rarely captures flies on the wing or descends to feed on the ground. In June it begins to sing shorter strains, but with no diminished power. It may then be observed flying from branch to branch of an apple-tree, resting for a few seconds only in the same spot, and busily occupied in collecting grubs or aphides, then indulging in a short strain. ”

“ Why had he gotten scared when he heard the bobwhite and the turtledove?
I was remembering that June beetles get awful hungry at night and they eat the foliage of oak and willow and poplar trees. In the daytime they hide themselves in the soil of anybody’s pasture or in the grass in the woods. June beetles are crazy about lights at night and the very minute they see one they make a beetle-line for it just like the one which right that second was struggling on its back on the mound of earth. ”

“ In "fly"-infested areas where these insects are not very numerous, comparatively few or possibly none at all will be seen during the months of May, June, and July, when the days are short and not excessively hot and the nights are bitterly cold. In fact, it is quite possible to pass through a good deal of "fly" country during these months without ever becoming aware of the existence of these insects. But as the days get longer and hotter, and the nights less cold, if there are any tse-tse flies in a district at all they will be found to increase very rapidly in numbers. ”

“ Most mealy bugs produce eggs, which are laid in a spacious, cottony sac secreted at the posterior end of the female; the female insects, egg sacs, and male cocoons together form characteristic woolly masses on infested plants.
The injury caused by mealy bugs may be considerable, not only through the drainage of plant sap, but also owing to the production of honey-dew and its consequent sooty mould. All parts of plants are subject to mealy bug attack, and the insects are frequently attended by ants. ”

“ During the months of March, April, May, June, and July, their food is almost wholly insects, and during that period the amount of their insect food, all of it of the most noxious kinds, is perfectly enormous. These they both consume themselves and feed to their young. Wilson estimated the number of insects destroyed by these birds in a single season, in the United States, at twelve thousand millions. ”

“ For a succession or long-continued crop, plant a few hills in rich moist land about the last of May. The young plants always run a gauntlet of insects, and a little striped bug is usually their most deadly enemy. These bugs often appear to come suddenly in swarms, and devour everything before you are aware of their presence. With great vigilance they may be kept off by hand, for their stay is brief. I would advise one trial of a solution of white hellebore, a tablespoonful to a pail of water. Paris green—in solution, of course—kills them ”

“ The excess of heat seems equally unfavourable as the excess of cold, to the existence of the smaller species of water insects, which, during the intensity of sunshine, seldom appear in summer, but rise morning and evening only. The blue dun has, in June and July, a yellow body; and there is a water-fly which in the evening is generally found before the moths appear, called the red spinner. Towards the end of August, the ephemera appear again in the middle of the day—a very pale, small ephemera, which is of the same colour as that which is seen in some rivers in the beginning of July. ”

“ The bird itself is perfectly inoffensive, singular in form and habits, though rarely seen alive near enough for its peculiarities of form and colour to be observed. Its note, however, is familiar enough to persons who are in the habit of being out late at night in such parts of the country as it frequents. The silence of the evening or midnight walk in June is occasionally broken by a deep churr-churr-err which seemingly proceeds from the lower bough of a tree, a hedge, or paling. And a whirring of the wings comes often from their being brought in contact as the birds twist in insect-hunting. ”

“ The enemies of the rose are many. They are of two classes; the insect foes, and diseases caused by Fungi. And their prevention and destruction are tasks, as every rose-grower knows only too well, which call for ceaseless vigilance and constant work, more especially in the early months of the season. For if remedies are applied in good time, the pests of both kinds give comparatively little trouble after May and June until the early autumn, when a fresh crop of both appears. ”

“ Rose-bugs are also eaten greedily by domesticated fowls; and when they become exhausted and fall to the ground, or when they are about to lay their eggs, they are destroyed by moles, insects, and other animals, which lie in wait to seize them. Dr. Green informs us that a species of dragon-fly, or devil’s needle, devours them. He also says that an insect, which he calls the enemy of the cut-worm, probably the larva of a Carabus, or predaceous ground-beetle, preys on the grubs of the common dor-bug. ”

“ They may ordinarily be found upon the late blooming plants, feeding as usual upon the pollen of the flowers, and also to some extent upon molds and other fungi, and upon decaying vegetation. There can be no further doubt that the insect is single-brooded, that it hibernates in the egg as a rule, and that this does not hatch until after the ground has been plowed and planted to corn in the spring probably in May or June. ”

“ You say the ground below the alder bush was all sticky and black, John?
That was the honey dew, blackened by a little plant something like mould, that grows on it.
We often see woolly plant lice in the summer-time on different plants, and one species injures apple trees. It gets on the roots as well as on the tender bark of young trees and kills them.
Yes, indeed, Mollie, the aphids are bugs. They belong to the bug order, which is a very large and important insect family, and contains some members that are exceedingly troublesome to us.
Scale Bugs
What, May, you are tired out? ”

“ But the bountiful Creator has left no place for indolence in this world of ours; it would be too disastrous an example to be permitted with impunity. The bees accordingly turn them out to starve, or garrote them as they catch them, and -9- at all risk get rid of the incumbrance. Do idle young men deserve better treatment?
A hive in June is a perfect study, a model of order, work, neatness, and beauty; it is rich in interest to everyone who has an hour to spare. ”

“ He is rather handsome, as bugs go, but utterly dastardly, in that he gnaws the stem of the plant close to the ground, and ruins it without any apparent advantage to himself. I find him on the hills of cucumbers (perhaps it will be a cholera-year, and we shall not want any) , the squashes (small loss) , and the melons (which never ripen) . The best way to deal with the striped bug is to sit down by the hills, and patiently watch for him. If you are spry, you can annoy him. This, however, takes time. It takes all day and part of the night. ”

“ Skipping the lace bugs, red bugs, or "cotton stainers," and others, we come to a series of families that are among the worst pests of the farmer and gardener, the chinch bug, squash bug, cabbage bug and many others, the aggregate effect of whose ravages causes a loss of millions of dollars' worth of crops every year, not only in this country, but everywhere that grain, vegetables, and fruit are cultivated; and in most cases it is not the native but introduced species that does the most damage. ”

“ In June caterpillars are a favorite food, and weevils of various kinds are taken in varying quantities throughout summer and fall. About half of the remaining 20 per cent of insect food is composed of beneficial ground beetles, ladybirds, predacious bugs, and parasitic wasps, and related forms, the rest consisting of neutral or injurious forms. Numerous instances are on record where fields badly infested with white grubs or grasshoppers have been favorite resorts of crows, whose voracity has resulted in a material suppression of the pest. ”

“ The song of birds must sound very loud and strange in June; and how cold the feet of insects must feel upon it, as they make laborious progresses up the creases of the bark, or sun themselves upon the thin green awning of the leaves, and look straight in front of them with diamond-cut red eyes.... One by one the fibres snap beneath the immense cold pressure of the earth, then the last storm comes and, falling, the highest branches drive deep into the ground again. ”