The Insect Folk Part 37

SCALE BUGS

What, May, you are tired out?

What have you been doing?

Oh, yes, was.h.i.+ng the scales off the leaves of your mother's window fern.

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It must indeed have been a task; what did you wash them off with? Why did you use soap suds?

Because your mother told you to; well, that is a good reason, but why do you think she told you to use soap suds?

You say you don't know, but you think very likely these scales are some sort of bug, as everything nowadays seems to be bugs.

Well, I don't know about everything being bugs, but those scales certainly are. They are scale bugs.

Did you stop to look at them under the magnifying gla.s.s?

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No, but you brought a piece of the fern for us to look at.

It will be necessary to put it under the microscope.

There, now look.

Yes, that scale looks like a tiny mussel sh.e.l.l; but look carefully, and you will see it has legs.

Lift it up with the point of a pin, and under it you will find a ma.s.s of eggs. Yes, Ned; it is like a quant.i.ty of eggs under a dish cover.

The cover is the female scale bug, and she has laid all those eggs.

Yes, the scales we see on so many plants are the scale bugs.

They are not all alike in shape, or size, or color; here is a different kind, you see.

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But they are all very prolific; that is to say, they produce a great many young, and do it in a short time.

Yes, John, the tiny, dark-colored scales that look like little oyster sh.e.l.ls on the skins of oranges are a form of scale bug, and a very troublesome one, too, to the orange grower.

But though most of these insects are troublesome, the family is redeemed by a few members that are of great value to us.

One of these is the scale bug that supplies sh.e.l.lac, and all that comes from it to our markets. These curious bugs give forth a resinous substance that envelops the eggs and glues them to the twigs whose juices the bug sucks out. It is this resinous substance that is collected by breaking off the twigs where the insects are. It is used for varnishes, as you know, and for polis.h.i.+ng wood and other substances.

There are other scale bugs that secrete wax, and some of them produce it so abundantly, and of such good quality, that it has become an article of commerce. China wax, which is wax of a very fine quality, is secreted by a Chinese scale bug, and the wax is used for making fine candles, as well as for other purposes.

In Mexico we have the cochineal insect, which is a scale bug that lives on a cactus that grows in Mexico.

Like many others of the scale bugs, the cochineal males have wings and are not so scalelike as their helpless mates.

But they are of no use to us. It is only the female cochineal we use.

She is raised in great numbers in cactus gardens planted on purpose.

Here is the picture of a cactus with cochineal insects upon it.

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These insects contain a very brilliant, red coloring matter that is used by us in dyeing leather and wool, and in making paints. The insects are gathered and dried, and thus sent to market.

Although a few of them are useful to us, the scale bugs, on the whole, are a serious pest; and they are found on nearly all kinds of plants all over the world.

You should think all the plants would soon be gone, so many insects eat them?

Well, they would, only other things eat the insects.

Insects have a great many enemies, after all.

Sometimes the weather is bad for them, the season is too hot or too cold, too wet or too dry, and then they do not appear in large numbers.

Sometimes one kind of insect eats another kind.

Sometimes tiny plants, like moulds, grow on the insects and kill them; and birds destroy a very large number.

If the farmers only knew how much good the birds do them, they would never allow one to be killed. Even the crows that pull up their corn are worth many times the corn they eat in the insects they destroy. There is scarcely a bird but what is of value to the farmer.

The hawks that catch his chickens catch more mice and moles in his fields, than chickens in his barn-yard.

And as for the robins, the blue jays, and all the small birds, they do more to save the growing plants, than all the soap suds and kerosene emulsion that were ever made.

No one should ever shoot a bird. The birds are our natural protectors against the vast armies of insects, that, but for the birds, would soon destroy us by eating up our food plants.

What is that, May? You belong to an Audubon Society for the protection of the birds?

Yes, I know you do, and so do John and Ned and Mollie and little Nell.

I wish every child in the United States belonged to the Audubon Society.

Then our birds would be safe. They would never be killed as they are now for foolish women to wear on their hats.

When the Audubon Society children grew up they would not wear dead birds, of course, and their children would be taught better, so that after a while the Audubon Society people would be the only ones left, and so the birds would be safe.

Let us get as many people to belong to the Audubon Society as we can.