NATURE STUDY I.ESSONS. 55 



the little bees sucking honey from flowers with their 

 long tongues, and the ants and wasps biting and 

 chewing with their stout jaws ; but these and all their kind 

 have four thin wings, with the hind pair the smaller. 

 These thin wings are said to be "membranous," and so 

 all the insects of this group belong to the order Hymenop- 

 tera, or "membrane-wings." For even the ants have 

 wings for a short time once in their lives, and September 

 is the best month in the year to observe the winged swarms 

 as they rise from the ground and fly high in the air on a 

 nice, pleasant afternoon. 



The order Hymenoptera is a very large one, and in- 

 cludes not only the bees and wasps and ants, but ichneu- 

 mon-flies, which pierce other insects with a sort of sting 

 and lay eggs in them ; saw-flies, with tiny saws, with 

 which they cut slits in leaves, where they place their eggs ; 

 gall-flies, that cause the galls on the oaks and on many 

 other trees and plants ; and horn-tails, with long, stout 

 borers, with which they drill deep holes in solid wood. 



The bees and wasps are very numerous in early fall, and 

 will be found in great abundance about fruits and flowers. 

 There are many groups, or families of them, as of the gall- 

 flies and others of the order, and sometime we will learn to 

 separate them into these smaller groups ; but for the pres- 

 ent it is enough to select the insects with two pairs of 

 thin, or membranous, wings, and put them in one pile, or 

 pin them by themselves in a box labeled Hymenoptera. 



When six piles have been made from the day's collect- 

 ing, the seventh and last pile is, of course, made also, for 

 it contains all the insects that remain. In this respect, 

 the pile is quite typical of the order, which includes groups 

 so widely unlike that some scientists have made as many 

 as twelve orders from it. The children, however, should 

 at first consider all insects with four wings alike, nearly of 

 a size and marked with man}- fine veins, as belonging to 



