NATURE STUDY LESSONS. 53 



Nature Study Lessons. XV. 



BY EDWARD J. BURNHAM. 



August and September are good months for the general 

 collecting of insects for nature study. The specialist, of 

 course, will miss some species that were to be found earlier 

 in the season, but an hour's work with the net on any 

 bright day in late summer and earlj^ fall will secure many 

 specimens of each of the seven kinds which we proposed to 

 assort into seven piles, which may then be pinned in as 

 many rows, or as many boxes, to be farther divided into 

 smaller groups later on. 



So, in this lesson, we will complete the seven piles, or 

 grand divisions, or orders, in which we may put all the 

 kinds ot insects that we shall ever find. 



When the children, from the collection they have made, 

 have placed the beetles in one pile, the bugs in another, 

 the butterflies, moths and skippers in a third, and the flies 

 in a fourth, they will be sure to find in the still unsorted 

 insects a great number of grasshoppers and crickets. Quite 

 likely, too, at this time of year, they will have some of the 

 awkward, slender creatures called walking-sticks, and some 

 cockroaches. If thej^ live in the South, or in the southern 

 middle States, they may also have a praying mantis. 



These insects differ greatly in appearance. vSome are 

 of one color, and some of another ; some have long hind 

 legs for jumping, like the crickets and grasshoppers ; the 

 cockroaches have legs fitted for running, while the walk- 

 ing-sticks can best cling to the twigs of the trees upon 

 which they live, and can scarcely run at all. But they all 

 have one thing in common, and that is, that they have 

 mouth-parts for biting, instead of beaks and tubes and 

 tongues, like the bugs and butterflies and flies, and yet 

 their jaws are not like the jaws of beetles. It is easy to 



