82 



The Book of Bugs. 



taste. I don't believe I'd care for it. It may be mere 

 prejudice, but 1 guess I can stagger along without eating 

 cake made of bugs' eggs. This cori.va has a iong snout, 

 and plays on it with its forelegs. I don't suppose it can 

 carry a regular tune, like " Juanita," or " The Holy City/' 

 It would be rather nice if it could, wouldn't it? Rich 

 folks could have their cori.va imported from Mexico and 

 keep it in a cage and go up to it and say, ' Cori.va! 

 Cori.ra! Tweet! Tweet! Can't you play a nice little 

 air for the lady ? ' 



These seventeen-year locusts, which are not locusts, 

 but bugs, are musicians in their way. They do not fiddle, 

 but make music by bending in and out a sort of drum, 



Fig. 17. The hop plant louse, male; the only husband and father 

 for a score of generations. 



as one works the bottom of the sewing-machine oil-can. 

 I used to think that the story of their appearance only 

 once in seventeen years was cut off the same bolt of goods 

 as the accompanying yarn that you could tell whether or 

 not their intentions were peaceful by looking on their 

 wings. If there was a letter W there,, you might know 

 they had come to make trouble. But if, on the other 

 hand, they had arrived at the conclusion that we had 



