Bug

“ But as in the flea among flies, here we find myriads of true bugs without a vestige of wings, and others, like the cicada, with ample wings as clear and free from opacity as those of a fly. It would take more space than I have at disposal to tell precisely what a bug really is entomologically, such a diversity of forms is presented in the family. But the sucking beak, and the fact that the average bug is born a bug from the egg, instead of going through the usual transformation of larva, chrysalis, and imago, will have to suffice us [236] for the present. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Slowly and almost imperceptibly he moves his head towards the luckless bug, and when his beak is within a couple of inches of it he makes a quick grab that is invariably fatal. In this connection I sometimes wonder [Pg 230] if my attitude as a nature lover is entirely correct. The bug probably enjoys life just as much as the turkey, and I wonder if the bug should not have my sympathy rather than the birds. ”

“ On touching a live bug with only the tip of a pin put into the mixture, the insect will be instantly deprived of existence, and should any bugs happen to appear after using the mixture, it will only be from not wetting the linen, &c., of the bed, the foldings and linings of the curtains near the rings or the joints, or holes in and about the bed or head-board, in which places the vermin nestle and breed ”

“ They call every insect a "bug," but bugs are bugs, flies are flies, ants are ants, and neither flies nor ants are bugs.
Indeed, no insects are bugs—excepting just bugs!
Our croton bugs are not really bugs. They do not belong to the bug family.
A bug has four wings—when it has any.
But its wings are not like those of the Orthoptera or Odonata or Ephemerida or Plecoptera.
Some bugs have no wings.
Young bugs are like old bugs, only smaller, and they have no wings. ”

“ To be sure, we can find bugs, black, brown, green and grey, but the mere presence of an insect is nothing, though with many, it seems enough, when a tree is blighted, if a bug is found on it, to determine the parentage of the mischief. Nor do the published accounts of insects, found on blighted trees, increase our respect for this theory. ”

“ In Europe this species haunts houses for the purpose of preying upon bedbugs. Riley, in his well-known article on Poisonous Insects, published in Wood's Reference Handbook of Medical Science, states that if a fly or another insect is offered to the cannibal bug it is first touched with the antennæ, a sudden spring follows, and at the same time the beak is thrust into the prey. ”

“ Many of the insect pests that infest the garden come to prey upon the plants indoors. The same warfare I wage without, I must wage within. Care and attention are ever the price of the flower. The insects continue to multiply. They develop new races and people new countries. No sooner does one scourge become extinct than a dozen others take its place. For the weevil we have the army-worm, the potato-bug, the apple-tree borer, the codling-moth. I no sooner administer a soporific to the red spider than the aphides are at work, and these are scarcely subjugated ere the mealy-bug appears. ”

“ Wherever the hooks of an insect's feet pierce her tender skin, she pours out a milky juice to entangle its feet and body, and it is a lucky bug that succeeds in escaping before this juice hardens, and holds him a prisoner condemned to die. ”

“ Before becoming the pretty red ladybird with black spots, this pretty insect, which, in spite of its innocent air, crunches the plant-lice, is a very ugly worm, a slate-colored larva, covered with little points, and itself very fond of plant-lice. The June bug, the silly June bug, which, if its leg is held by a thread, awkwardly puffs out its wings, makes all preparations, and starts out to the tune of ‘Fly, fly, fly!’ is at first a white worm, a plump larva, fat as bacon, which lives under-ground, attacks the roots of plants, and destroys our crops. ”

“ And the bugs high up in the corners in the little bug houses, they opened the bug doors, looked out of the bug windows and said, "They are washing their shirts and sewing on buttons, there is a wedding again—the Hot Cookie Pan and Splinters."
And now they have many, many children, the Hot Cookie Pan and Splinters. Their children have gone all over the world and everybody knows them. ”

“ For this insect has no teeth, and could not bite a blade of grass if it wanted to. And herein we see one of the peculiarities which constitute him a "bug," and which also includes in the same company our woolly swarm upon the alder twigs. In place of teeth these insects are supplied with a beak for sucking the juices of plants. If we carefully examine the dense snowy mass we find it composed of small tufts closely crowded together, each tuft being borne upon the plump body of a small insect whose beak is deeply sunk into the tender bark. ”

“ Frog spittle, May says. So you think the frogs spit on the grass do you? They must be tall frogs to reach up so high.
With this little twig let us carefully brush away the white froth.
Now see.
Yes, there is something in the centre of it.
It is the larva of a—bug!
The female bug, and here is one of the little things, lays the egg on the leaf or twigs, and when it hatches the [Pg 153] young bug sucks out the sap of the plant which finally appears as this white froth.
The larva remains surrounded by the froth until its transformations are complete. ”

“ The insect has a long, slender, flexible, sucking beak, which is thrust into the leaf or stem or fruit of the orange on which the "scale bug" lives, and through which the insect sucks the orange sap, which is its only food. ”

“ And sometimes if a little bug asks a big bug a queer, quivvical, quizzical question hard to answer, the big bug opens a bug door, looks out of a bug window and says to the little bug, "If you don't believe what we tell you, go and ask Hammer and Nails or any of the little Hammers and Nails. ”

“ It is not the human blood neither that makes them smell, because a young bug who has never touched a drop will smell. They breathe, I believe, through their sides; but I can’t answer for that, though it’s not through the head. They haven’t got a mouth, but they insert into the skin the point of a tube, which is quite as fine as a hair, through which they draw up the blood. I have many a time put a bug on the back of my hand, to see how they bite ”

“ The species of the first division very generally possess the power of emitting, when disturbed or alarmed, a nauseous, bed-buggy odor, which comes from a fluid secreted from two pores, [18] situated on the under side of the metathorax. Such well-known insects as the Bed-bug and Chinch-bug belong here. The habits of the species are varied, and while some are beneficial, others are quite injurious to man. ”

“ It is described and figured in "Harris's Treatise on Insects." Closely allied, though generally wingless, is that enemy of our peace, the bed-bug. It has a small somewhat triangular head, orbicular thorax, and large, round, flattened abdomen. It is generally wingless, having only two small wing-pads instead. The eggs are oval, white; the young escape by pushing off a lid at one end of the shell. ”

“ A brown spotted lady-bug climbed the dizzy height of a grass blade, and Tom bent down close to it and said, "Lady-bug, lady-bug, fly away home, your house is on fire, your children's alone," and she took wing and went off to see about it —which did not surprise the boy, for he knew of old that this insect was credulous about conflagrations, and he had practised upon its simplicity more than once. ”

“ The bite of the bug is very curious. They bite all persons the same (?) ; but the difference of effect lies in the constitutions of the parties. I’ve never noticed that a different kind of skin makes any difference in being bitten. Whether the skin is moist or dry, it don’t matter. Wherever bugs are, the person sleeping in the bed is sure to be fed on, whether they are marked or not; and as a proof, when nobody has slept in the bed for some time, the bugs become quite flat; and, on the contrary, when the bed is always occupied, they are round as a lady-bird. ”

“ The insects had drawn blood.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” answered the professor, as he made a grab for a large bug that was trying to get down a crack, for some of the scientist’s specimens were very lively. “I’m sure I don’t know. I was sleeping peacefully, when I was suddenly awakened by this man shouting.”
“How did you come to get the beetles?” asked Jerry, looking severely at Mr. Buttle.
“I didn’t git ’em, they got me,” he declared. “Th’ consarned critters pinch wuss than lobsters.” ”

“ And there's the fire-fly, which is a soft-bodied beetle.
"And there's the very useful little beetle we call the ladybug, which is not a bug, but a beetle. The ladybug is a great help to men who own fruit orchards in the West. All over the country are to be found little bugs called scale insects. These scales are very bad for trees, because with their long, slender beaks the scales pump out the sap. ”

“ The other kinds of insects are equally striking in their life-histories. All beetles, such as the potato bug and June bug, develop from grubs which, like the maggots of flies, are similar to worms in numerous respects. ”

“ The fact that this bug is eaten by various creatures is, of course, what one might expect from a knowledge of its habits and colouration. It is very probable that its disgusting smell does afford it a certain amount of protection from enemies—indeed, it would be hard to account for such highly developed offensiveness except on some such ground of utility ”

“ The bedbug is to man what the chinch bug is to grains or the squash bug to cucurbs. Like nearly all the insects parasitic on animals, however, it is degraded structurally, its parasitic nature and the slight necessity for extensive locomotion having resulted, after many ages doubtless, in the loss of wings and the assumption of a comparatively simple structure. ”

“ Insects vary greatly in size. Some are as large as small birds, while others are so small that a thousand placed in one pile would not equal the size of a pea.
Insects are commonly spoken of as "bugs." This term, however, is properly used only when referring to the [2] one order of insects which includes the sap and blood-sucking insects such as the chinch bug, bed-bug, squash bug, and the like. Then too, there are many so-called "bugs" which are not insects at all. Spiders, thousand-legs, crawfishes and even earth-worms are often spoken of as bugs. ”

“ Other insects, such as the Hessian fly, the green-bug or spring grain aphis, the army-worm and various species of grasshoppers are killed by tiny parasitic insects whose eggs are laid in the bodies of the larger insects, but which, after being hatched, feed on them. ”

“ To be sure, many insects to which we give the general name of bugs are quite destructive in our orchards and gardens, but, for all that, they are only eating their natural food, and although we may be very glad to get rid of our garden bugs as a body, we can have nothing to say against any particular bug. None of them are more to blame than the robins and other birds, which eat our cherries and whatever else we have that they like, and we never call a robin "horrid" because he destroys our fruit. ”

“ My work is more method; and I may call it a scientific treating of the bugs rather than wholesale murder. We don’t care about the thousands, it’s the last bug we look for, whilst your carpenters and upholsterers leave as many behind them, perhaps, as they manage to catch. ”

“ The winged insects of the order to which the bed-bug belongs often inflict very painful wounds, and it is even stated, upon good authority, that an insect of the order, commonly known in the West Indies by the name of the wheel-bug, can communicate an electric shock to the person whose flesh it touches. ”

“ Others of the species infesting birds and bats may also on occasion become house pests. For example, the nests of the common barn or eaves swallow of this country often swarm with the barn-swallow bug, [3] and from such nests under the eaves of dwelling houses these bugs sometimes gain entrance to houses and beds and are the cause of much annoyance. ”

“ You know insects are subject to diseases.
What, Nell, you never heard of a sick bug?
Yet it seems they are sick sometimes, and certain diseases kill them. Chinch bugs are not as healthy in some places as in others. ”

“ The tibia shuts into a groove in the femur, and thus the bug is able to seize and hold its prey.
It clasps its victim in its arms, as it were, and calmly proceeds to suck out its blood.
In some species of the giant water bugs the female does not leave her eggs in the pond to take care of themselves; she puts them on the back of her mate, who is obliged to carry all of his progeny about with him until they relieve him by hatching out and swimming off to see life for themselves. [Pg 127]
Little Mrs. Shore Bug
May says she wants to hear more about bugs. ”