An Elementary Study of Insects | Page 8

their
face and feet after feeding. Give them leaves of different plants,
especially of field and garden crops and determine which they like best.
Can you find any plant which they will not eat? Find out how fast they
feed and considering the life of any one individual to be 200 days,
calculate the number of grass blades each individual may eat. Are the
feelers used while in the jar, and if so for what purpose?
STUDY OF SPECIMEN
Take a grasshopper from the jar and examine it carefully. Count the
number of legs, wings and joints in the body. How many joints in the
legs? Examine the tip of the foot for a soft pad and on either side of it a
strong hook. What are these used for? What are the sharp spines on the
side of the hind-legs for? Examine the side of the body and see if you
can find the small breathing pores. How do the legs join the body?
Where are the wings attached? How broad are the wings as compared
with the body? How are they folded? Are the two pairs of wings alike?
Which is used most in flying? Is the head firmly attached to the body?
Examine the large eyes; where are they found? Will grasshoppers bite
you while handling them? What is the brown juice which escapes from
the mouth when disturbed? How long are the feelers as compared with
the body? Can you tell the males from the females? What is the
distinction? Do they ever make music? Examine for all the foregoing
points and write a brief report covering these. Make a careful drawing
of a grasshopper from one side; also make an enlarged drawing of the
face of a grasshopper and name the parts.
CHAPTER IV
THE HOUSE FLY OR TYPHOID FLY
In the house fly we find one of man's most deadly foes. War can not
compare with the campaigns of disease and death waged by this most
filthy of all insects. In our recent strife with Spain we lost a few lives in
battle, but we lost many more in hospitals due to contagious diseases,
in the transmission of which this pest played a most important part.

The fly is dangerous on account of its filthy habits. It breeds in filth,
feeds on filth in open closets, slop-barrels, on the streets and in back
alleys and then comes into the house and wipes this germ-laden filth on
our food or on the hands or even in the mouths of helpless babies. Who
has not seen flies feeding on running sores on animals, or on "spit" on
sidewalks? These same flies the next minute may be feeding on fruits
or other food materials. We rebel when pests destroy our crops or
attack our stock, but here we have a pest which endangers our very
lives, and the lives of those dear to us.
If the fly confined itself to filth we could overlook it as it would help to
hasten the removal of filth. On the other hand, if it avoided filth and
remained in our home we could not overlook it, but we could feel safe
that it was not apt to do us a great deal of harm. But, like the English
sparrow, one minute it is here and the next somewhere else; from filth
to foods and then back again to filth. In this way it carries disease
germs upon its feet and other parts of its body and by coming in contact
with food material some of these germs are sure to be left on it and
cause trouble later. The fly's method of carrying disease is different
from that of the mosquito where the germ is carried inside its body.
[Illustration: House fly; a, larva or maggot; b, pupa; c, adult; e, egg. All
enlarged. (Modified from Howard Bur. of Entomology. U. S. Dept.
Agri.)]
The presence of flies in the home is usually a sign of untidiness; but it
means more, it means that disease and often death is hovering over the
home. We are too apt to consider the fly simply as a nuisance when we
should take it more seriously. The child should be led to realize that the
fly should not be tolerated in the home, that it is dangerous and that it
can and must be destroyed.
The house fly may pass the winter either as the adult fly in cracks and
crannies about the home, or in out-buildings or it may remain as a hard,
brown, oval pupa in stables and manure piles when, with the first warm
days of spring, it escape from this case as the fly ready to lay eggs for
the first colony. The fly breeds largely in horse manure either in