The Insect Folk Part 25

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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 ephemerae, 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 ta.s.sel, and _oura_, the tail.

HEMIPTERA

THE GREAT BUG FAMILY

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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.

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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?

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Yes, John; it is the water boatman.

Nell says she doesn't see it.

There, Nell, that little thing that s.h.i.+nes 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.

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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?