A Guide for the Study of Animals Part 6

_Note._--Your instructor will give directions for obtaining the material called for in 3, 4, and 5.

_Directions._

Look carefully and quietly in the various situations noted below. Do not be in a hurry. Weedy meadows or vacant lots and neglected roadsides are good places for your first trips. Note concerning each insect found: (a) its name or something by which to identify it, (b) where you found it, (c) what it was doing, (d) its probable food.

Record these observations in your notebook. Make a special study of such insects as your instructor may designate.

Where to look for Various Insects

_Gra.s.shoppers, locusts, katydids._ Look along roadsides, waste places, gardens, especially weedy ones, weedy lots, and gra.s.sy meadows and pastures.

_Crickets._ Under old boards, along the edges of board or stone walks, along fences.

_Beetles._ Same locations as for crickets, and also on flowering plants, under loose bark of trees and stumps, in rotten logs, etc.

For _water beetles_ drag edges of ponds and streams.

_Dragon flies._ Along water-courses, ponds, and swamps. Drag ponds and ditches for larvae.

_Bees._ On flowering plants, especially on large patches of wild asters, golden-rods, and thistles.

_Wasps._ Sandy stretches,--especially along the water,--among flowering plants, under the eaves and roofs of outbuildings. Nests may be found in these latter places.

_b.u.t.terflies and moths._ In fields where there are many flowering plants; look carefully on the leaves of plants for caterpillars, and for eggs. Also look very carefully on the under side of leaves, on twigs, and on the bark of trees for chrysalids of b.u.t.terflies and coc.o.o.ns of moths.

_Bugs._ In same locations as for bees and gra.s.shoppers and water beetles. Also on fruit.

_Aphids._ On the fresh growing tops of plants.

_Tree hoppers._ On trees and shrubs. Hold your net on the under side of branches and shake the branch vigorously.

_Flies._ Around decaying substances, as garbage, fruit, etc.; on flowering plants.

_Ants._ Sandy waste places, decayed logs, along walks, often in kitchens.

_Note._--At night many kinds of insects fly around electric lights or into open windows, attracted by the light and may easily be collected.

Form for Field Trip Report

The notes taken on a field trip may be conveniently tabulated for permanent record in the form indicated below:--

FIELD TRIP REPORT

Date________ Time________ Locality________ Pupil's Name________ ---------------------------------------------------------------- Name of Insect | Where Found | What it was Doing | Probable Food ---------------+-------------+-------------------+-------------- | | | | | |

In case the name of the insect is not known to you, use a number and some designation as to color or other mark by which it may be known until you have leisure to look up its name by means of keys or books on insects.

Special Field Studies

The questions below may be used for a more careful field study of any insect.

1. Just where was the insect found?

2. Note carefully what the insects are doing before they are disturbed by your presence. What did the insects do when you disturbed them? If you think this related to securing safety, explain what leads you to think so.

3. What senses do you conclude are well developed? Reason for your conclusion.

4. Has the insect a home? If so, what is its character?

5. What is the color? What is the relation between the color of the insect and its surroundings?

6. Is the insect solitary in its habits or a.s.sociated with others of the same species? If in a.s.sociation with others, note the numbers, and what they are doing.

7. What modes of locomotion do you observe in this insect? Which is the most common? If it flies or jumps, note the distance.

8. If you find the young, note whether they differ from the adult in general appearance, and if so, in what ways they differ. Do they differ in food?

9. What other insects do you find in the same habitat?

2. A STUDY OF GRa.s.sHOPPERS (LOCUSTS)

_Insects adapted to Life in Gra.s.sy Meadows and Fields_

_Materials._

Both living and dead specimens of gra.s.shoppers. Various stages of young gra.s.shoppers either dead or living. Some mounted specimens with wings spread. The wings of gra.s.shoppers mounted in pairs between two gla.s.s slides for use with microscope or hand lens. Mounted preparations of mouth parts and tracheae.

_Definitions._

_Orthoptera_, straight-winged insects, order to which belong gra.s.shoppers, locusts, katydids, crickets, c.o.c.kroaches, etc.

_Vivarium_, a cage in which living animals are kept.

_Anterior_, toward the head of an animal.

_Posterior_, opposite to anterior.

_Dorsal_, the upper surface of an animal.

_Ventral_, opposite to dorsal.