Little Busybodies

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Little Busybodies, by Jeanette Augustus Marks

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Title: Little Busybodies The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies
Author: Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody

Release Date: June 27, 2007 [eBook #21948]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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LITTLE BUSYBODIES
The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees Beetles, and Other Busybodies
by
JEANNETTE MARKS and JULIA MOODY of Mount Holyoke College
Illustrated

[Illustration: 1. Cicada Killer 2. May-fly 3. Lacewing-fly 4. Dragon-fly 5. Aphis 6. June-Beetle 7. Cicada 8. Lady-Beetle 9. Mole Cricket E. L. Beutenmuller]
Harper & Brothers Publishers New York and London MCMIX
* * * * *
STORY-TOLD SCIENCE For Children from Eight to Fourteen Years of Age
Other Books for the Series:
CRUSTY COUSINS: Crabs, Spiders, etc.
SHELL DWELLERS AND URCHINS: Clams, Oysters, Snails, Starfish, Sea Urchins
HATCHING WATER BABIES: Fish and Frogs
BIRD WITS
LITTLE MAMMALS
FLOWERS
A series intended to cover simple types of plant and animal life, arranged in logical order
* * * * *
Harper & Brothers, Publishers, N. Y. Copyright, 1909, by Harper & Brothers. All rights reserved. Published April, 1909.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
A WORD TO THE CHILDREN AND THE WISE v
I. THE JOURNEY 1 II. RANGELEY VILLAGE 11 III. THE LITTLE ARMY (Locusts and Grasshoppers) 21 IV. FIDDLERS (Crickets) 34 V. HOW KATY DID (Katydids) 43 VI. FISHING (Dragon-flies) 50 VII. THE SWIMMING-POOL (The May-fly) 61 VIII. THE RAINY DAY (Leaf and Tree Hoppers) 68 IX. THE PRIZE (Lace-Wing, Ant-Lion, and Caddis-Worm) 77 X. A NAGGING FAMILY (Flies and Mosquitoes) 90 XI. CAMPING OUT (Butterflies and Moths) 103 XII. CAMP-IN-THE-CLOUDS (Butterflies and Moths, continued) 114 XIII. STORM BOUND (Beetles) 122 XIV. A DAY'S HUNTING (Bees) 136 XV. LEAVING CAMP (Wasps) 153 XVI. EYES AND NO EYES (Ants) 167
NOTE.--We do not think it practicable to give classifications except as they exist unnamed in the above titles: (1) straight winged: locusts, grasshoppers, crickets, katydids; (2) tooth-shaped: dragon-flies; (3) ephemerals: may-flies; (4) half-winged: leaf and tree hoppers; (5) nerve-winged: lace-wings, ant-lions, and caddis-worms; (6) two-winged: flies and mosquitoes; (7) scaly winged: butterflies and moths; (8) sheath-winged: beetles; (9) membranous-winged: bees, wasps, and ants.

A WORD TO THE CHILDREN AND THE WISE
We hope that the children who read this book will like the boys and girls who are in it. They are real, and the good times they have are real, as any boy or girl who has lived out-of-doors will know. And the stories are true. Peter is not always good. But do you expect a child always to be good? We do not. Sometimes, too, the frolics turn in to a scramble to catch a dragon-fly that will not be caught, and there are accidents. Also, Betty and Jack work hard to win a prize which the guide gives to the child who learns most about ants.
Of course it would be impossible for five children to go in search of locusts, grasshoppers, crickets, katydids, dragon-flies, May-flies, leaf-hoppers, lace-wings, caddis-worms, butterflies, beetles, bees, wasps--and so many other six-legged creatures that among them they have wings and legs enough to fill a new Pandora's box--without having a good deal happen. And a good deal does happen. It is all true enough, and every word about the six-legged busybodies is true as true. The other books, too, that come after this in our Story-Told Science Series will be every word true.
And we who wrote this book? Well, we, too, have been children. We used to climb trees and turn somersaults; why--But that is another story! And we remember so well what it used to be like to have to learn dull things we did not wish to know. So we said to ourselves, as we looked over our spectacles at each other, "No, they sha'n't be told a single uninteresting fact; they sha'n't be dull, poor dears, as we were so long ago, before we put on spectacles and began to call ourselves wise."
And so, although we sat down and wrote a book just about long enough for a school-year's work; although we felt very proud because our stories had more wonderful six-legged creatures than any book written for children; although we took pains to have in the book only such little creatures as any one of us could see any day; although we hoped that mothers and teachers would say, "At last, this is a book the children and I can like and