Chapter 5

They all belong to one large family or order, the ORTHOPTERA.

Or-thop-te-ra, is it not a hard word!

It will not seem so hard when you know what it means.

It comes from two Greek words _orthos_, meaning straight, and _pteron_, meaning a wing.

Straight-wing.

And do you know, it does not mean that the _upper_ wings are straight, but that the under wings are folded down in long straight lines.

Now let us see if we can tell in what ways all of our Orthoptera are alike.

They all have--?

"Four wings"--that is right, little Nell.

What, John? the walking sticks have no wings?

Not our walking sticks, but yet they belong to a winged family. You remember the tropical walking sticks that have queer leaf-like wings, do you not?

Are the four wings alike?

No, John says, the upper ones are narrow and stiff and serve as wing covers.

The inner ones are broader and more delicate. They fold up when not in use and are used to fly with.

Very good indeed, John. Now I will tell you something. The Orthoptera all have mouth parts made to bite with. They do not bite anything but what they eat, however. They are quite harmless so far as we are concerned.

The young Orthoptera look like the old ones, only they have no wings. They hatch out of the egg with a head, a six-legged thorax, and an abdomen.

Now, come, let us look at all of our orthopterous friends again, cockroaches first.

How do they get about, John?

Yes, indeed, they run, the rascals. They run fast too. They are flat and their six legs are very much alike. They are well built for running and hiding in cracks.

Suppose we call them the _Running Orthoptera_.

Now, look at our mantis.

He does not run very much. How is he different from the others?

Ah, yes, he has big front legs, and little Nell says he grabs things with them.

So he does. Now, what shall we call these grabbers?

The Grabbing Orthoptera, Ned says.

Suppose we say instead the _Grasping Orthoptera_, because grasping sounds a little better than grabbing. Do you not think so?

Now for Mr. Walking Stick.

We cannot very well call him a member of the Running Orthoptera, can we?

Ah, Mollie has it. We must call his kind the _Walking Orthoptera_.

His six legs are all long and slender, and he moves them slowly.

Now for those fellows with the long hind legs, the locusts and katydids and crickets. Yes, all of you are ready to name them.

We call them--what?

May says, the Hopping Orthoptera.

John thinks Jumping Orthoptera would sound better.

And that is what we name them, the _Jumping Orthoptera_.

How many kinds of Jumping Orthoptera are we acquainted with, Ned? Now, think before you speak.

He says we know the shorthorned grasshoppers, or locusts, the longhorned, or meadow, grasshoppers, and the crickets.

Very well done, Ned.

May wants to know what has become of the katydids and the cricket-like grasshoppers--she thinks Ned has left them out.

Ned says they belong to the longhorned grasshoppers.

Now you shall have a list of the Orthoptera that will help you to remember them.

If we can group together things that are like each other, it is easier to remember them.

ORDER ORTHOPTERA.

_Running Orthoptera._ Cockroaches, Croton Bugs. _Grasping Orthoptera._ Praying Mantis. _Walking Orthoptera._ Walking Sticks. _Jumping Orthoptera._ Shorthorned Grasshoppers, or Locusts. Longhorned, or Meadow, Grasshoppers. Crickets.

There are a great many species of Orthoptera in the world, and we have seen but a very few of them.

But I can tell you, we feel a little better acquainted with you orthopterous fellows than we did.

The dragon fly says we have not given him a place.

But, dear dragon fly, you belong to another family. You are not an orthopterous insect.

Your order is called the ODO-NA-TA.

The wings of the Odonata are very different from those of the Orthoptera.

You remember how they are?

Yes, Ned, they are stiff and covered with a close network of fine veins, and all four of them are alike.

No wing covers, you see.

I do not know why they have the name Odonata.

The young Odonata are not like their parents, excepting that they have a head, a thorax with six legs, and an abdomen. But they certainly do not look like their parents!

No, John, the May flies do not belong to the Odonata. Their wings are quite different.

Do you not remember how small the hind wings are?

The name of their order is EPH-E-MER-I-DA.

There is a big name for a little insect!

It comes from the Greek word _ephemeros_, and you know what it means.

What? Has everybody forgotten about the dainty little ephemeræ, that live but a day?

That is what _ephemeros_ means, lasting but a day.

The stone flies have four wings, but they are not like those of the Odonata, or of the Ephemerida.

Do you remember how the hind wings are folded?

Yes, May, in plaits, so these are the plaited wings, or PLE-COP-TE-RA, from _pteran_, a wing, and _plecos_, plaited.

The little silver fish, as you remember, has no wings at all, so its order is called THY-SA-NU-RA, from its bristle tail, _thysanos_, in Greek, meaning a tassel, and _oura_, the tail.

HEMIPTERA

THE GREAT BUG FAMILY

Now, my children, do you know what a bug is? Most people do not.

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.

You remember the Orthoptera and Odonata bite their food.

They chew it up and swallow it.

Bugs do not bite, they suck. Their mouth parts are often grown together in the form of a tube that is sometimes very sharp.

They stick these sharp tubes or beaks into their food, and suck it up.

THE WATER BOATMAN

What, May; you want to see a bug? Well, that is easy enough.

Here is one in this pond at our feet. Do you know it?

Yes, John; it is the water boatman.

Nell says she doesn't see it.

There, Nell, that little thing that shines like silver under the water. It is clinging to a weed.

No, we cannot see it very well unless we catch it.

Ned, do you think you can be spry enough to scoop it out with the net?

There, he has it,--no, it is off.

Well, we shall never see that one again; but here, in this corner of the pond, see, several of them.

Now don't be in too great a hurry, Ned; they are hard to catch.

He has it!

Here, don't touch it,--bugs are biters, remember.

Put it in this tumbler of water, and clap the cover over it--quick--so!--now we have it.

What is that, Mollie? I just said bugs do not bite, and now I call them biters?

I don't wonder you are puzzled.

They do _not_ bite, but they pierce with their mouth tubes, and that feels just as though they bit us. So we commonly speak of bugs as biting.

If you wish to be very exact, we will hereafter speak of bugs as piercing or sucking.

Now, Mr. Water Boatman, we are going to have a good look at you.

Nell says it is not like silver any more, but just a little black and gray speckled bug.

That is because it is now on top of the water. When it goes under it is surrounded with a layer of air, and that is what makes it look as though it had on a silver dress.

May wants to know how it manages to take a layer of air down under the water. If you were to look at it with a magnifying glass, May, you would see it is covered with fine hairs; the air becomes entangled in these hairs. Do you not remember how the leaf of the jewel weed, or touch-me-not, as it is also called, shines when you plunge it in water? It, too, is covered with fine hairs that hold air. Many leaves shine in this way when put under water, and always because of the fine hairs that prevent the air from being pushed out by the water. You see the hairs on the bugs serve the same purpose as those on the leaves; they hold fast the air.

Our water boatman breathes this air that surrounds him.

You know how insects breathe do you not?

Dear me, then I shall have to tell you.

They have no lungs; of course, so they cannot breathe with lungs as we do.

Take a long breath--see how your chest rises--that is because you filled your lungs full of air.

Well, the insects have to breathe air.

Every living thing has to breathe air. Nothing in the world could live without air.

Even plants breathe the air, you know.

Now, there is a little row of holes or pores along each side of the abdomen of the insect.

These are the breathing pores. No, May, the insects do not breathe through their mouths, they breathe through their sides.

You can see the breathing pores, or spiracles, as they are called, very plainly in many insects.

You can see them on the abdomen of the locust, and in some caterpillars they are bright-colored spots.

There are spiracles on the sides of the thorax, too, but they do not show so plainly as those on the abdomen.

The spiracles open into air tubes that carry air to the blood of the insect.

If you watch a grasshopper or a bee, you can plainly see it breathe. The abdomen moves in the bee as though it were panting. These movements of the abdomen cause the air to go in and out. All insects move their abdomens to send the air in and out, but it does not show plainly in all of them, for, though insects need air, some of them can get along with very little.

Yes, John, insects have blood. It is not just like our blood, but still it is blood.

It is not generally red in color, though sometimes it is reddish, and sometimes it is brown, or violet, or even bright green.

Yes, that seems strange to you, but you remember how ears are ears, and serve to hear with, no matter where on the body of the creature they are located. So blood is blood, and serves the purpose of blood, no matter what its color. The blood of some insects has a very bad odor, and in the case of certain beetles, when they are disturbed, this foul-smelling liquid oozes out of the joints of the legs.

Yes, Mabel, it is probably used, like the "molasses" of other little friends we know, to repel enemies.

But to return to breathing. Some larvæ breathe by gills, and do not have spiracles until they are grown up, but all grown-up insects breathe by spiracles.

Yes, John, the larvæ of the dragon flies and May flies breathe with gills.

I thought you would remember that.

The water boatman breathes by spiracles, and carries his supply of air with him. All grown-up bugs breathe by spiracles.

Now look down into the pond. I think you will see some water boatmen anchored near the bottom.

Yes, May, they cling by their front feet. Their hind pair of legs are rather odd-looking; they have a fringe of hairs on the inside.

John says their hind legs are modified to swim with.

Very good, John.

The hind legs are the oars that row these little boats about in the water.

But why are the little boats that have come to anchor down there moving their paddles so constantly?

Ah, yes; it is because they want fresh air to breathe.

You know there is always air in pond water, and they keep their paddles moving, so as to change the envelope of air that surrounds them.

They know what to do to take care of themselves, if they _are_ nothing but little bugs.

When winter comes, they go down to the bottom of the pond and bury themselves in the mud. They lie there without moving or breathing until spring, when out they come, as lively as ever.

Yes, certain other animals pass the winter in this way; the bears, for instance, find a snug den and sleep all through the coldest winter weather. We call this winter sleep of animals hibernation, and many of the insects hibernate.

Yes, Ned, hibernating animals can get on with very little air; they sometimes seem to need none at all, and they take no food.

May wants to know what these queer water boatmen eat.

They suck out the juices of other insects.

They must lay their eggs in the water, little Nell thinks.

And so they do, on water plants.

Near the city of Mexico there are species that lay enormous quantities of eggs in the ponds, and what do you think? The Indians mix these eggs with meal, make them into cakes, and eat them.

The Mexican bugs are gathered by the ton, too, and sent to England as food for cage birds, fish, and poultry.

Little Nell thinks there must be a great many bugs in a ton. Indeed, there are, probably about twenty-five millions of them; so you can imagine Mexico is well supplied with water boatmen!

When the young ones hatch out they look like their parents, only, of course, they are tiny little dots of things that have no wings.

But they eat and grow and moult like other larvæ until they are full-grown insects.

What have you discovered, Ned? You look surprised.

The water boatman has no antennæ!

It doesn't seem to have any. But look carefully and I think you will find some tiny ones tucked away under its head.

Nell wants to know if the water boatman has a thorax and an abdomen.

Indeed, it has, but you will have to look carefully to see them. Its abdomen is short and thick and hard. The water boatman is much more compact in form than the Orthoptera, or any of the other insects we have studied.

You are right, John, an insect with a long abdomen, like the grasshopper, could not get on very well in the water.

Now, May, take the cover off the tumbler. There!

Our water boatman was not slow to make use of his wings.

Well, good-by and good luck to you, little water boatman.

THE FUNNY BACK-SWIMMERS

What, John? You know a water boatman that swims on its back?

That makes Nell laugh, and no wonder.

Yes, there is a little bug that swims on its back.

It is very much like the water boatman, and it has long paddles made of its queer hind legs.

Unlike the water boatman, however, its back is not flat but is shaped like the keel of a boat.

This being the case, it just turns over and swims with its keel-shaped back in the water.

It is sometimes called the back-swimmer, and most boys are well acquainted with it.

What do you think about catching it in your fingers, Ned?

Ah, you do not like to!

It has a very sharp beak for sucking the life out of other insects, and if you succeed in getting hold of it, it will stick that into your finger.

And my! how it does sting!

It is not an easy matter to catch it, however,--it is such a quick little rascal.

THE GIANT WATER BUG

A good many kinds of bugs live in the water, but perhaps the oddest of all is the giant water bug.

It _is_ a giant!

Have you ever seen very large, flat brown bugs lying on the ground under the electric street lamps?

Those are the giant water bugs.

They fly in the night from pond to pond, and are attracted by bright lights.

They fly into the electric lights, and are killed in great numbers sometimes.

This is such a common habit with them that in some places they are called electric light bugs.

A good many people never saw these bugs until they were found dead under the electric lights, and so they imagined they did not exist until electric lights were invented.

But that is a very foolish notion; the bugs were here thousands of years before electric lights were dreamed of.

The giant water bugs are not pleasant to handle when alive.

If you ever succeed in catching one in the water, which is not easy, they slip about so quickly, be sure and not take it in your fingers.

The California children call a species they have there "toe-biters," and they say they bite their toes when they go in wading.

The giant water bugs are the largest of living bugs, and they even kill and eat fish.

Their fore legs can shut up like a jackknife. 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.

LITTLE MRS. SHORE BUG

May says she wants to hear more about bugs. Well, there is little Mrs. Shore Bug. I think you must all know her.

She is the little bug that flies along in front of you on the seashore, or, indeed, on the edge of any body of water.

She flits along just in front of you, and is so quick in her motions that you will hardly ever catch her.

She does not fly far--she alights just far enough ahead to make you try again to capture her, but when you think you have her, she isn't there!

She has sped off on one of her short flights, and so she will continue to do as long as you continue to chase her.

THE AIRY WATER STRIDERS

Then there are the water striders.

They are bugs, and it is easy to guess how they got their name.

You surely remember the longlegged, dark colored fellows that straddle about on top of the water, in ponds or in still pools in streams?

Who has not tried to catch them!

And how very seldom any one succeeds!

May knows where we can see some water striders close at hand.

They are on the pond in the meadow. Let us go.

Ah, you little ones! There you are, scampering over the water on your airy, fairy feet, as though you were on dry land.

How they flash about! And what cunning dimples their little feet make on the water when they stand still!

If we keep very quiet, they will stop darting about in that wild way, and we can see them better.

Now, water striders, why do you behave so, and what do you eat?

Eat? Why, insects, of course. And as to behavior, they may well wonder more at ours than we at theirs.

They skate about on the surface of the water all summer, and when winter comes they hide away at the bottom of the pond, right under the water, or along the edges of the banks.

When the warm spring sunshine wakes up the sleeping plants, then the little water striders wake up too.

Out they come, to resume their endless skating and insect catching, but now they lay their eggs, gluing them fast to water weeds.

The young water striders look like their parents, and they, too, like to go circling and flashing over the top of the water, with their long legs spread out.

A QUEER FELLOW

What do you suppose is in this box?

Little Nell may open it.

There, out he comes--slowly, as though he were looking around and thinking about it.

May says, "Hello, Mr. Walking Stick, you here again?"

Ho! ho! _is_ it Mr. Walking Stick?

You look again.

Mollie thinks, if she were going to name it, she would call it Mr. Walking Threads.

Yes, it is more slender than even the walking stick.

What is that, John? You thought insects had six legs, and this has only four?

Now, here is something for us to think about.

Ned says it has six long threads that might be legs, but it does not walk on the two front ones.

It seems to use them as antennæ.

Ned says those front ones look to him to be jointed just like the others, and he thinks they are legs.

Mollie says they have no little feet like the others, and she thinks they are antennæ.

Well, well, what are we to do? Think of its having feelers that look like legs or legs that look like feelers, so that you cannot tell which they are!

Now it is beginning to move, and--Oh, ho, that long part in front is not its head!

See, it separates into two--what?

Surely, two front legs.

See, they were folded up, somewhat like the front legs of the mantis, only these could fold close together, being threadlike.

So the long threads are antennæ after all.

Now it has raised its head, which we easily see is quite round, with tiny eyes, and the antennæ are growing out from the front of it.

What is it? A walking stick? A mantis?

Why! why! There it goes, sailing off in the air with a queer little fluttering motion of its whole body.

It has wings!

John has caught it and brought it back.

Now let us see those wings, you strange little creature.

You will have to look close, but there they are, narrow, short, such tiny wings! How _do_ you suppose it flies with them?

You seem queerer and queerer the more we look at you, little what-shall-we-call-you.

But we know you are not a walking stick because our walking sticks have no wings.

The truth is you are a--bug!

Yes, this little threadlike creature belongs to the same order as the big flat giant water bug.

It grasps its victim, in its fore feet like the mantis, but instead of biting its prey it sucks out the juices.

You would hardly expect such a delicate creature to catch and kill other insects, yet such is the case.

No, I do not think it will pierce your finger with its beak. I have often handled them, and have never been stung by one. We often see them walking about in the grass and along paths.

THE WELL DRESSED LACE BUG

IF we pay a visit to that hawthorn bush we shall probably find a bug to our liking. Yes, here is one.

It is a tiny thing, I know, but wait until you see it under the microscope.

Ah, I thought you would be pleased!

Nell says it looks as though it had on a lace party dress.

Is it not a dainty fairy!

We call it the lace bug.

It does not suck the juices of other insects, but instead it sucks the juices of plants.

Its eggs are very curious. It lays them on leaves and glues them fast. They look like little out-growths of the leaf.

The young lace bugs are like their parents in form, only, of course, they have no wings and so they are not pretty.

Fairy lace bug, we are glad to make your acquaintance.

A BAD BUG

Now, here is a bug we all loathe. It is round and flat, and reddish brown in color, and it has a disgusting odor.

But though we hate this bug, it is very fond of us. It has a short, sharp tube folded down under its head, and this tube it likes to raise up and stick into the skin of people, and suck out their blood.

It has no wings, only a pair of little scales where its wings should be. Yes, May, these scales are rudimentary wings, and they are good for nothing. It once had wings, but it preferred to go slipping about in cracks and hiding in beds, until in course of time no wings grew, which served it right.

It has antennæ and eyes and spiracles; indeed, it has everything a bug should have but wings and good manners.

We call it the bed bug because its favorite home is in beds, so that it can sally forth at night and feast upon its sleeping victims.

It lays its eggs in cracks and crevices, and each egg is like a little jar with a rim and a lid at the top. When the young one hatches it pushes off the lid. The young are in shape like their parents, only they are very light colored, and almost transparent. They look like ghosts of bugs, but they are very voracious ghosts indeed, and they eat and moult and grow and become darker colored until they reach maturity.

One strange thing about them is that they can live a very long time with nothing to eat, so that houses long vacated may still contain these nuisances, that sally forth, eager to round out their emaciated forms at the expense of the new occupants of the house.

The barn swallow is sadly afflicted by a species of these unwelcome visitors to its nest, and the poor bats are also victimized by a species of bed bug.