bigklow] NATURE-STUDY LESSONS OBSERVED 87 



saw. The teacher then said, "Look again carefully and when the 

 larvae come to the surface, jar the glass and see what they will do." 

 The answer from the pupils was, "When the glass is jarred the 

 larva falls to the bottom and does not have to wiggle down." 

 Then, after more watching, some pupils reported that "sometimes 

 the mosquito comes to the surface and bites his jaws together." 

 At this point the teacher looks at the specimens to verify this 

 statement heretofore unknown to her. A pupil then asked, 

 "Why do all the larvas hang at the surface of the water with the 

 tail-end out?" The teacher replied, "Look carefully and think 

 of something which all animals must do. Is the larva eating with 

 its tail-end?" In a moment the pupils replied "no." Again the 

 teacher questioned "what else besides eating must animals do in 

 order to live?" Several pupils replied, "Breathe," and suggested 

 that possibly the larvas were breathing at the surface of the water. 

 The teacher told them that scientific men had found that this was 

 true. One pupil remarked, "Isn't the tail a funny place to 

 breathe?"; and another one said, "You couldn't drown a mos- 

 quito by holding his head under water because he could stick his 

 tail out to breathe, and another one remarked, "You couldn't 

 drown a caterpillar either by sticking his head under water because 

 he breathes all along the sides of his body." At this point the 

 teacher showed them how to transfer a larva to a watch-crystal 

 and how to examine it with a small hand-lens with a tripod sup- 

 port. After looking carefully for a moment, various pupils 

 reported that there were "rings" on the body, "whiskers" as they 

 called the hairs, "more whiskers on the big ring next to the head," 

 and "black lines inside of the body from head to tail." The 

 teacher here explained that these lines represented the food-tube. 

 Pupils next saw feelers and eyes on the head. The teacher asked 

 about the size and the pupils reported that some were smaller 

 than others. The teacher asked why ; and some pupils suggested 

 that caterpillar larvas, which they had studied, were at first small 

 and after eating for a long time became large. 



After thus noting the more striking features of the animal's 

 structure, the pupils were instructed to make sketches. Exami- 

 nation of their sketches afterward showed that some were life- 

 size, some were three or four times the life-size, some represented 

 a wine-glass with the larva at the surface of water and there were 

 many other variations due to the fact that the pupils were left to 



