NATURE'S CRAFTSMEN 



which, with divers variations in form, character, and 

 habit, agree in having the mouth parts formed for 

 piercing and sucking instead of for biting. 



On the whole, it is a disreputable group, which we 

 fancy we could easily spare from the world; although, 

 perhaps, if we better knew "the balance of the powers" 

 in nature, we might reverse our opinion. It embraces 

 among its many families twenty thousand known 

 species, and probably a yet greater host of species un- 

 known. Some of these are most interesting creatures. 

 There, for example, are the cicadas, or seventeen-year 

 "locusts," as our countrymen will insist upon miscall- 

 ing them. And there are the tree-hoppers, those odd 

 little chaps, the brownies of the insect world, whose 

 queer shapes suggest that there must be a streak of 

 mirthfulness in the broad bosom of Mother Nature. 



And here are our Hydrometrids, or water-striders, 

 whom we are glad to put on the credit side of the long 

 and heavy account against the Hemiptera; for they 

 do no harm, but really help us somewhat by aiding to 

 scavenger our ponds and running streams, besides giv- 

 ing no end of pleasure to boys and girls and idle fellows, 

 like the author, who love to wander in the open fields 

 and groves and watch the busy life of our little brothers 

 and sisters of the land and water. And surely there is 

 no lad or lass who ever loitered along a brook who has 

 not seen a bevy of water-striders skinnning over the 

 surface like a bunch of skaters upon ice! Perhaps it 

 may be well to suggest to such observers that the name 

 "water-spiders/' which one often hears, is a popular 

 perversion. 



Here, in a bit of quiet water between two ripples, is 

 a group of a dozen or so; for, although they do not 



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