﻿HABITS AND STRUCTURE OF INSECTS. 107 



tie-insect, seventeen-year cicada, May-%, and gall-fly. Let 

 the pupils endeavor from their own observations to make 

 additional life - histories, or record facts, concerning other 

 insects, such as the honey-bee, paper-wasp, and a great many 

 other common insects, of which no mention has been made 

 here. The turning over of stones and logs in the woods 

 will oftentimes expose the burrows of ants, and the ants 

 wdll probably be found busily engaged in carrying off long, 

 white, oval cases, which look like eggs ; let the pupils collect 

 some of these, and see if they can find out what stage in the 

 history of the insect they represent. 



98. An instinct which appears wonderful to us, prompts 

 the insect to seek appropriate places for the deposition of 

 her eggs. The butterfly, for example, seeks for food 

 the nectar of flowers ; its larvae, however, must have 

 leaves upon which to feed, and the instinct of the butterfly 

 impels it to deposit its eggs in a place where the young 

 shall find their appropriate food. It has been learned 

 also that other insects store up animal food for their 

 young, as in the case of the mud-wasp, where spiders are 

 imprisoned in cells in which the eggs have been previously 

 laid. 



The gall-flies deposit their eggs directly in the substance 

 of the leaf. 



99. Another group of insects, much resembling the gall- 

 flies, deposit their eggs directly in the bodies of the larvae 

 and pupge of other insects. They are called ichneumon- 

 flies. These insects have on the hinder part of the body a 



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