Cornell Nature-Study Leaflets: Being a selection, with revision, from the teachers' leaflets, home nature-study lessons, junior naturalist monthlies and other publications from the College of Agriculture, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 1896-1904New York State College of Agriculture
History
Cornell Nature-Study Leaflets: Being a selection, with revision, from the teachers' leaflets, home nature-study lessons, junior naturalist monthlies and other publications from the College of Agriculture, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 1896-1904
New York State College of Agriculture
Natural history; Nature study
3. Every one can also find crickets, and no terrarium will be complete
without them. In the warm schoolroom or home they will make music until
late in the year. Watch the black cricket make music with his wings.
Notice a tiny light speck near the elbow of the cricket's front leg.
This is the ear; so you see the little fellows "listen with their
elbows."
The mother cricket has a spear at the end of her body. With this she
makes a hole in the ground in which to place her eggs. She cannot chirp,
but the father makes enough music for the family. You will see that the
mother seems to enjoy it.
Plant fresh grass seed and grain occasionally in the cricket corner of
your terrarium.
4. If you do not own an insect net, try to find a lace-winged fly
without one. It will not be difficult for young naturalists to see the
flies resting on the bushes along the roadside. These insects are
valuable to farmers because their children, the aphis-lions, eat so many
plant-lice and other insects.
[Illustration: _Fig. 345. Golden-eyes or lace-winged fly; eggs, larva or
aphis-lion, cocoon, adult._]
Look on the under side of the leaves for the cocoon illustrated in Fig.
345. It has the appearance of a small pearl. The first time I found one
I did not know what it was. I left it on my desk hoping that something
interesting would come out of it. The next morning there was a pretty
green insect trying to get out of the window and I wondered how it had
come there. While thinking about it my eye fell on the cocoon lying on
my desk. I noticed that a lid had been raised on it and suspected at
once how golden-eyes had found her way into my room. Who will succeed
in getting the eggs, an aphis-lion, a cocoon, or a lace-winged fly? Let
us know.
5. The larger the number of butterflies you can bring into the
schoolroom, the gayer will be the terrarium world. Gather fresh thistles
or other flowers from which they can suck the nectar or give them
sweetened water in a dish. Notice their long mouth-parts as they eat.
One of the most common of all butterflies is the large brown and black
one. This is called the monarch butterfly. Notice that many of these fly
together on autumn days. They are going south with the birds.
6. Be sure to keep the moss damp for the salamanders and add
occasionally fresh pieces in which they will get food. Perhaps you can
teach them to eat raw meat after they have been with you awhile.
7. The terrarium will not be complete without a toad or two. You can
feed them flies, other insects, and earthworms, and they may then leave
the salamanders alone. You need not be afraid to handle the toads for
_they cannot give you warts_. When they have been in the terrarium
awhile they will show you how they like to spend the winter.
[Illustration: _A terrarium in School No. 23, Buffalo._]
LEAFLET LXXII.
MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES.[93]
BY ALICE G. MCCLOSKEY.
[93] Junior Naturalist Monthly, March, 1902.
[Illustration]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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