CHAPTER ONE 



BUILDING A MAKE-BELIEVE INSECT 

 COMPARING A BEETLE WITH A BOY 



In order that we may understand the plan 

 upon which insects are built, and, for that matter, 

 the plan upon which every live creature is built, we 

 must compare them to something we understand; 

 probably the easiest way to do this is to pretend 

 or make beheve that we are about to create an 

 insect ourselves, that we have in our hands some 

 putty, clay, dough, chewing gum or modelling wax ; 

 the latter is best, so we will call it wax and from 

 this stuff we are going to model the live creatures. 



First we will roll the wax between our two 

 hands (Fig. 1) and make of it a sort of worm, a 

 kind of fat angle-worm, or, as the boys call it, a 

 fish-worm. This, you will see, looks like a worm, 

 and feels like a worm, but it is not alive and can- 

 not move and if it should become alive it would 

 not live long because we have made no provision 

 for supplying new flesh and skin as the old ones 

 wear out and waste away. To supply this need, 

 we must have a mouth and stomach; in other words 



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