Little Busybodies: The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other BusybodiesMarks, Jeannette Augustus
Science
Little Busybodies: The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies
Marks, Jeannette Augustus
Insects -- Juvenile literature
"They are alike in many ways. You remember, do you not, that the locust
has a pair of soft jaws covering over the dark, hard ones? In the moths
and butterflies these jaws are different. Each one is long, and has a
deep groove on the inner side. These two grooves fit together, and make
a slender tube called a proboscis. When flying this long tube is rolled
up in a tight coil under the head; alighting, the proboscis is quickly
uncoiled and dipped into the throat of the flower, and the sweet nectar
sipped from it. See here, Jack, what have you on your fingers?"
"The dust from the butterfly's wings, sir."
"No, not quite dust, or powder, either. That dust is tiny hair and
scales. If I had a powerful lens in my pocket I could show you how
deeply some of these tiny scales are scalloped, so that they look like a
hand with fingers. If you rubbed all the scales off that wing there
would be no color left, for the scales are like little sacs, and many of
them contain grains of color called pigment--red, yellow, or brown. You
have all seen the rainbow of colors on a soap-bubble? Well, the
brilliant colors of the wing are made in just the same way as the colors
on a bubble: by the light striking the little ridges on the overlapping
scales."
"It is not only we who are fearfully and wonderfully made," said Mrs.
Reece, "but even the tiniest creatures God has created, and all with a
purpose, all with a place."
The guide nodded his head. "The more you study, the more you see how
every least thing is part of a great mysterious whole. If you look at a
butterfly's wing from which the scales have been rubbed you will see
plan and purpose in the placing of even those scales; for the little
pits into which the stems of the scale fit are turned all one way,
toward the base of the wing."
"They are so beautiful!" exclaimed Betty. "Are they always pretty?"
"That depends," replied the old man, "whether in their caterpillar youth
you think them pretty. They have a bad name, then, for being homely, and
do a good deal of damage."
"Oh, I hate caterpillars!" cried Hope.
"Fuzzy caterpillars hump so and crawl," said Betty.
"You mean woolly bears?"
"Woolly bears!" exclaimed the children.
"Yes; not Teddy bears. They have to play somehow, so they wiggle for
joy, and this takes them along very fast--that is, fast for a
caterpillar. Sometimes they spin a long thread by which they take a
flying short cut and land--on your back."
Jimmie dropped a tiny twig down Betty's back, which made her scream.
"But they don't harm us," said Ben Gile. "They are so fussy about what
they eat for dinner that they wouldn't think of biting even the sweetest
little boy or girl. They prefer something far more tender. Ah, you
wouldn't like Isabella!" The old man shook his head sadly.
"Isabella! Who is Isabella?" questioned the children.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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