Part 7

The mole cricket neither flies nor sings by day. If dug out of his burrow, he seems very stupid and helpless. At evening, he tries to comfort himself by a low, jarring song.

The mole cricket has a hard, shell-like body. Its legs also are horny. For this reason, one of its names is the “earth crab.” It is of a lighter color than the other crickets.

Mrs. Mole Cricket makes a very pretty nest. It is the size and shape of half an egg, cut lengthwise. It is put very near the surface of the ground. Then the rays of the sun can warm the eggs.

Mrs. Cricket makes her nest soft and smooth. Then she puts into it about one hundred eggs. The eggs are in a tough skin, not a shell. They are of a gray-yellow color. The earth above the nest often looks like an ant-hill.

Mrs. Cricket does not cease her care for her eggs, when they are put into the nest. There are some kinds of beetles that eat these eggs. Mrs. Cricket digs round and round her nest a network of halls. She hopes the beetle will get lost when he comes to look for her eggs.

After the eggs are laid, and the halls are all made, what do you think Mrs. Cricket does? She sits in one of her halls. She listens for Mr. Beetle or any other enemy. When he comes, she runs out to attack him. She fights so bravely that she drives him away.

At night, when the mole cricket is flying about, its body sometimes shines like fire. You know the firefly shines. But the firefly gives forth its light in flashes. The glow-worm has a steady light.

The mole cricket does not always shine. But some have been found to do so. People who have seen these big, bright things flying in the dark, have been so foolish as to get frightened.

I hope if you think of being afraid at any time, you will first make sure what it is that you are afraid of. The mole cricket is nothing to fear, even when he shines.

I think the reason that his body has been found to shine sometimes is this. He spends his time digging among dead wood and leaves. Sometimes he digs about dead animals.

Now, no doubt, there are times when in this work his body gets covered with a fire-shining stuff,[18] that comes among dead things. Then when he comes, fresh from his work, his body glows, and he shines as he flies. After a little, the shining matter wears off, and he shines no more.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] The teacher might give examples of phosphorescent light.

LESSON XXI.

OTHER HOPPERS.

One day, when I was a child, I went to play in a field, with my brother. I saw that many blades of grass had little balls of foam on them. My brother said, “The horses have been eating here; this froth is from their mouths.”

But when I had looked a little longer, I said, “There are no horses in this pasture. This grass has not been bitten.”

A man who came by, said, “Ah, that is cuckoo spit. The cuckoos dropped it from their mouths.” When the man had gone, I said, “Our father told me we had no cuckoos near here. And birds do not drop froth from their bills.”

A little French boy, who had followed the man, said, “How silly that man is! That is frog spit! Frogs make it, not cuckoos.” I told him, “There are no frogs in this field. I do not see one. But the froth is all over the grass.”

“Since no one can suit you,” said my brother, “you had better find out for yourself.”

Then I took a leaf and laid on it some grass blades with the foam balls on them. And I gently opened the balls with a grass stem.

Oh here was a queer sight! Here was a little, live, pale, green thing. It had two tiny, black eyes, two little feelers, a body shaped like a three-cornered wedge.

“See, see!” I cried. “These balls are cradles! The grasshopper has made these beds for her babies. Here is a wee grasshopper in each one.”

But it is very easy to be mistaken. I was wrong, too. For these little things were not grasshoppers, and they had made their foam balls for themselves.

Looking closer, we saw that the little green thing held fast by its head to the grass stem.

Then we saw that the foam ball being made of bubbles, changed and broke. You know bubbles do not last long. These tiny bubbles slowly broke, and a clear drop of water ran to the bottom of the ball.

When the drop grew large, it fell off. Then another formed in its place.

We did not need to think long to be sure that the little hopper sucked sap, or juice, from the grass. This sap not only fed it, but ran through its body, and made its foam cloak, or bed. This kept it safe and warm.

When we learned more of these things, we found that these were not grasshoppers. They belong to another order of insects. I tell you about them now, lest you make the mistake that I did.

These insects are hoppers. Frog-hoppers some call them. Their hind legs are very strong. They make great leaps for their size.

There are a number of odd insects in this order.[19] They are very unlike each other, except in the wings. It is called the order of the same-wings, because the upper and under wings are alike. Only the upper ones are longer.

In this order you will find some of the fireflies. You know them. They fly about over the grass on summer nights. They make pretty little fireworks for you, before you go to bed.

The little aphis, which spoils the roses, is of this order. You know the ants keep the aphis for their cow, and eat the sweet juice it makes.[20]

We will look at only two of this family. We want to know a little about this wee frog-hopper. And we will learn a little about his biggest cousin, the cicada, or “the singer.”

The hoppers have, also, a queer little cousin, the scale bug. The hopper draws out the plant sap, and covers its body with water. The scale bug turns the same sap into white dust. It covers its funny little body all over with flour!

Frog-hoppers are small insects. They have long feelers. They have only two joints in their feet. The frog-hopper has a big eye on each side of its head. It has, also, three simple eyes set on the top of its head, like this ⛬

All the hoppers live on plant juice. The little ones are very greedy. The mother lays her tiny eggs in the plant. When the larvæ come out they fasten their mouths on the skin of the plant, and begin to suck sap.

This bite of the hopper often makes ugly brown holes, or ridges, come on plants. Often the plants become sickly, and die, from loss of sap. The hoppers are not good friends of the plants, as the bees, ants, wasps, and birds are.

The largest of the same-wing order is the cicada. Did you ever hear him sing? Mrs. Cicada is quiet. Her mate sings all day. The hotter it is, and the drier, the more he sings. In all lands he is named from his noise, “the singer,” “the screamer,” “the squealer.”

The cicada is a dry, horny insect. He will keep well in a cabinet. He lives in trees. Mrs. Cicada has no music, but she has a sharp knife. How does she use that?

We might as well call her knife an awl, or a gimlet, for it is like all three. It is used to cut, or bore, a hole in the tree. Into the hole she puts her eggs.

This tool which Mrs. Cicada carries has three blades. The outer ones are rough on the edges. They can cut into very hard wood. Mrs. Cicada takes hold of the tree bark with her front feet. Then she cuts away with her knife, until she has made a neat little furrow.

She chooses a dead branch for this. The sap in a live branch would harm her eggs.

When the larvæ come out of the eggs, they at once leave the hole, and drop to the ground. There they dig a little house for a home. Their fore feet are well made for digging.

Underground they feed on roots. They change from larvæ to pupæ. Next summer they come up, full-grown. Then Mr. Cicada begins his song. Mrs. Cicada at once goes to work to cut holes for her eggs.

When, in mid-summer, the shrill song of the cicada is heard, people say: “Ah, now it will be hot and dry!” The poets have always loved the cicada, and made many pretty songs and stories about him.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] Animals and plants are divided into Classes, Orders, and Families, that we may arrange and study them more readily. A Class contains many objects with some great points of resemblance--as the Class of Insects. The Orders bring those together which have yet more points of resemblance--as the Order of the Same-Wings. Families contain those yet more closely related--as the Aphis Family, the Frog-hopper Family. The Classes, Orders, and Families have Latin or Greek names, of which in this book we give only the meaning.

[20] Nature Reader, No. 2, “Lessons on Ants,” p. 29.

LESSON XXII.

REAL LIVE FAIRY.

One September morning I took Hermie, and went over the hill, to the windmill. The hillside was covered with wild carrot, golden-rod, asters, white, purple, and pink. Near the windmill was a late wild-rose, in full bloom.

Right in the golden centre of the rose, on the stamens and pistils, I saw what might be two fine jewels, and the coiled-up spring of a fairy watch. On the ground, among the rose-leaves, lay four lovely fans, in black and gold. They looked as if the fairy-queen and her court ladies might have dropped them, as they came home late from a ball.

I put all these things on a piece of white paper. Then I sat on a stone, took out my microscope, and said to Hermie, “Look here!”

“O!” cried Hermie, “these are the head and wings of a poor butterfly! But where is his body gone?”

“A bird has eaten it,” I said; “see, the bird’s bill has taken in the body and clipped off the wings, and just missed the head, which has dropped off. These are not the relics of a fairy ball, but of a cruel murder.”

“I do not see,” said Hermie, “how a butterfly, which flits so fast, could be picked up so.”

We looked about the leaves of a wild-carrot, and, on the under side of two or three, safe from the wet, we found a cluster of pale greenish eggs. “See,” I said, “the bird dipped down, and picked up the butterfly, while it was clinging to the leaf, laying its eggs.

“Or, perhaps the eggs were all laid, and the butterfly was resting on the bush. Many of these insects die, soon after the eggs are laid. When the eggs are safely placed, the insect seems to feel tired and dull.”

Then we looked at the black and yellow wings through the microscope. “See all these little scales and plumes!” said Hermie. “They lie thick as a bird’s feathers! Once I put a butterfly in a box. When I let him out, the box was all dusted over with gold dust. But the butterfly did not look _bare_. He seemed as well dressed as ever.”

Then we looked at the head. “What big eyes!” said Hermie, “and that curled-up thing is his mouth. I have seen him drinking with it out of flowers. I do think butterflies are the prettiest things that are made!”

Many persons think the butterflies are the most beautiful of all the insects. Next to the beetles they are the most numerous order. They have, also, been the most studied. Let us look at them a little.

The butterflies belong to the great order of the scale-wings. To this order belong two groups of very beautiful insects. We will look at them. They are the butterflies and the moths.

The butterflies are insects of the day. The moths are generally insects of the night. Even when the moths fly by day they can be easily known from the butterflies. The butterfly always has a knob or a point on the end of his horns. The ends of the moth’s horns are pointed.

When the butterfly is at rest, his wings are held up and laid flat against each other. Thus the top sides are hidden, and the under sides show. His wings are called vans.

The moth rests with his wings folded along his body or laid out flat. They cling close to what he rests upon. If they bend at all, they bend downward, not upward. The body of the moth is shorter and thicker, more wedge-shaped, than that of the butterfly.

Now, for a look at our butterfly. The head is small and moves freely. It is not set in a socket to the body, but held by a little neck. On each side of the head is a great, bright eye with many thousand facets, or surfaces.

At the back of the head of a butterfly are generally two small, simple eyes. These are usually hidden under long hairs. Do you see the soft hairs which clothe all the butterfly’s body? For you must notice that the butterfly wears an elegant, soft, velvet coat of fine hairs. This coat is usually black or brown. But it has often stripes or spots of a lighter color.

On the top of the head the butterfly carries a pair of many-jointed horns. As I told you, the ends of these are little knobs.

The chief part of the mouth of the butterfly is a tube, called a trunk. Did you ever notice the big trunk of an elephant? The butterfly’s trunk is small. It is coiled up like a watch-spring when it is not in use. The butterfly can unroll it. It is so slim he can thrust it into the longest and narrowest flower cups.

Really this trunk is made of two pieces with little points upon them. These two parts lie together and seem one. Between them the honey is drawn up. You must know that butterflies live chiefly on honey. It is not likely that they take much other kind of food, but they are fond of water. Have you seen them in damp places?

When the fine trunk of the butterfly is curled up it is kept safe by two hairy pieces which grow on the front of the head.

The butterfly has six legs that grow from the chest part of its body. But the butterfly is not a walking insect. Bees, wasps, ants, and beetles, you know, walk a great deal. Butterflies rarely use their legs for anything but standing when they eat or rest. They move only by flying.

The wings are made of two thin skin-pieces laid upon a framework of nerves or veins. They are covered with a double layer of scales. The edge scales are long and fringe-like. The upper and under sides of the wings differ in color.

The upper wings are widest. They have smooth edges, and are of a triangle-shape. The lower wings are rounded. They have waved or pointed edges. Sometimes they have two long points like tails.

The body of the butterfly is made in rings, but they are soft, not horny like those of a dragon-fly. The body is slender and has no weapon. It has no sting to fight, and no saw to cut wood to make a place for its eggs.

LESSON XXIII.

THE CHILD OF THE DAY.

The butterfly is the chief partner of the flowers. Its long, slim drinking tube helps it to dip far into a flower’s throat. As it reaches in, it gets the stamen pollen well upon it. Then, since the butterfly rarely walks about, as the beetles do, it is not likely to waste the pollen by rubbing it off where it is not wanted.

Not only is the butterfly the flower’s best partner, but it wears the gay colors of the flowers. Once I was walking in a garden with a very little boy. A flight of yellow butterflies came over a tulip bed. “See! see!” cried the child, “the flowers are loose, and are flying away!” Poets, as well as children, have called the butterflies “flying flowers.”

In very early times, people began to study butterflies. It was not only their number or their beauty which made people notice them. It was the wonder of their changes, from egg to full-grown insect.

Who would think that this splendid thing, which scorns to use its feet, and lives on the wing in the clear air, was once a worm, crawling on many legs, among the grasses and leaves?

Who would think that this dainty creature, which drinks dew and honey, once spent all its days, chewing and gnawing leaves as the earthworm does?

Who would think that these bright wings, which are so crisp and stiff that they never bend or wrinkle even by a single fold, were once like little flat buds, inside a crawling caterpillar, or bound up in the tight, horny pupa case?

Let us follow the journey of these little greenish eggs, stuck on the under side of a carrot leaf. Let us follow them up their curious way, until we see them sitting on the heart of a rose, as on a throne of gold, and then suddenly sailing off among the sunbeams!

Each kind of butterfly prefers some especial plant, on which the caterpillar feeds. On this plant the eggs are laid. Some butterflies like oaks best; some cabbage; some choose plants of the carrot family for a home.

The butterfly which we will now hear about is the “swallow-tail.” It is one which likes fennel and wild carrot. It lays its eggs on the under side of the leaf of one of these plants. The eggs are placed in little patches. They are of a greenish color, and nearly round. The eggs of some other butterflies are of very odd shapes.

The first eggs of the swallow-tail butterfly are laid in May. In eight or ten days the eggs turn nearly black. Then out comes the little caterpillar. The first thing he does is to turn around and eat up his shell! Next he begins to eat carrot leaf. He grows, and in a few days casts his skin.

The caterpillar keeps on growing. To get more room he sheds his skin. He eats the cast-off skin each time. He is a very pretty caterpillar. His color is bright green. On each of his twelve rings he has a black band. On each black band there are gay, yellow spots. He is about an inch and a half long when full grown.

There is a queer thing about this caterpillar. If you touch him, while he eats, he runs out a little forked horn from behind his head. He seems to want to frighten you! When you let him alone he draws in his horns. These horns can emit a strong smell.

His feet are made with rings and hairs, so that he can creep safely along the plants where he feeds. His mouth is weak, so he can eat only soft leaves. In about two weeks he has eaten all that he needs.

Then he creeps up a plant stem and spins a strong silk rope. He binds this rope about his body and the plant stem. That ties him fast. The caterpillars of several kinds, which tie themselves in this way for the pupa state, are called girdle caterpillars, or belted caterpillars. He is also held fast by the tail as well as by this body belt. When he is tied, his body shortens and thickens. His caterpillar skin bursts, and drops off.

He is now a pupa. The pupa skin hardens into a little case. Now he neither moves nor eats.

How long is he a pupa? That depends upon the time of year. In spring, two weeks are enough for the change. In hot summer, nine days or a week will do. If it is cold autumn weather, the pupa will not change to a full-grown insect until the next spring.

If in the winter you find a pupa tied to a weed, and bring it into a hot-house, or a warm room, in a few days you will have a fine butterfly out. A wise man, who studied butterflies, put some pupæ in a very cold place, and they did not change for two or three years!

When it is time for the insect to come out of the pupa case, some motions like deep breathing are made. These crack open the hard skin. Then the insect pulls itself out. It is moist and weak. Its wings droop a little.

The new butterfly breathes hard, many times. At each breath air rushes through its body, and through the tubes of its wings. The frame of its wings stiffens and fills out. The body and legs grow dry and firm.[21]

Then the new-made butterfly rests a little,--perhaps for several hours. After that it seems to feel fine. It can move its wide wings! It can fly! It sails away!

Now it lights on a great white head of wild carrot, or on a rose. Let us look at it. Its wings are black and yellow. The black is in bands and streaks. It has six bluish spots on each lower wing, and one large red and blue spot. Its body is like black velvet. Each lower wing has a long, beautiful, curved tail.

The butterfly is an insect with far more beauty than sense. We may say it is an insect with very little brains. It has none of the wise ways of the ant, wasp, bee or spider; it only flies and eats, and lays eggs. It builds no house, stores no food, takes no care of its young.

The butterfly can see. It has wonderful eyes. It can hear. It can smell. It can taste. Its flower partners spread out for it their finest colors, perfumes, and honey drops.

FOOTNOTES:

[21] See Nature Reader, No. 2, Lesson 45.

LESSON XXIV.

LIFE AMONG SNOW AND ROSES.

I told you that the butterfly did no work, built no house, and showed very little sense. That is true of the full-grown butterfly. He seems so pleased with his wings that he does nothing but enjoy them.

But you must know that the caterpillar is only one state of the butterfly, and there are caterpillars which build for themselves very curious houses.

There are caterpillars which leave the egg in the autumn. They live as caterpillars all winter, and enter the pupa state in the spring. Let us watch them, as they live with the snow-flakes flying about them. Then we will watch them to the time of roses.

Many butterflies lay their eggs singly. They put one egg alone, on the tip of a willow, hazel, poplar, or oak leaf. Other butterflies put their eggs in small clusters on the underside of carrot, nettle, or blackberry leaves. Some put eggs in a ring, around an elm or birch twig.

Now and then you find the eggs in a chain or pyramid, hanging upon a leaf. There are, also, some butterflies which drop their eggs on the ground among the grasses, or on the lower parts of grass blades.

In all cases the caterpillar feeds on the plant on which he is hatched from the egg. When he is ready to come out of the egg all he has to do is to bite a hole in his shell and crawl forth. Then, at once, he begins to eat.

He may begin at the tip of the leaf, and eat up to the mid-vein on both sides. He is careful not to bite the mid-vein. When he has had a full meal, he goes and lies along the mid-vein to rest. Then, when rested, he eats again. Many do this, but not all.

When one leaf is finished, he takes the next one on the twig. After the first leaf he is not so careful to begin at the tip. He just bites out pieces anywhere, but he does not bite the big vein. Perhaps it is too hard. Perhaps he knows he must have it for a roadway.

Do you remember what you read in the First Nature Reader about the spider, which has in her body little knobs for spinning silk?[22] The caterpillar has a silk-spinner. It is in the underside of his head. It is a little tube in the shape of a cone.

Did you ever notice the queer way a caterpillar has of wagging his head from side to side? He acts as if in great pain. But he is not in pain. He is only laying down a silk web with that motion.

It is by means of this silk that the caterpillar makes his home. Let us look at him while he works. He fastens his line to the edge of a leaf. Then he carries it to the other edge, or to the next leaf. Then another line, and so on. Each line is a little shorter than the one before. This bends the leaf. At last it is bent into a tube, or box, or several leaves are bound into a bower.

The caterpillar bites a notch, or line, in the tip of the leaf to make it bend over for a roof. Is not that cunning? Think how strange it is, that a tiny thing, just out of the egg, away up alone on a tree, should know how to build this pretty house!

The caterpillar of the swallow-tail chooses a leaf for a home, weaves a silk carpet over it, and lies along the mid-vein. What do you think he does on rainy days, when the water begins to take his bent leaf for a spout or gutter?

He builds a second floor of silk, a little higher up, between the edges of the leaf. That makes a nice, dry, silk hammock. There he lies, while the water ripples along the mid-vein below him. I suppose the sound of the water sings him to sleep.

A caterpillar which makes a bag of a nettle leaf, for a nest, lies in it so snug that he is too lazy to go out for food. So he eats up his roof for his dinner! Another caterpillar draws a leaf together into a pretty little pocket. He weaves silk over it, outside and in, and then,--he eats up this dear little home, and has to make another!