NATURE STUDY LESSONS. 57 



down the back ; the bugs have sharp, jointed beaks and 

 wing-covers that are half thick and half thin ; the butter- 

 flies and moths have wings that are covered with fine 

 scales ; the flies have only two wings ; the grasshoppers, 

 crickets and their kind have wings with straight veins, like 

 the ribs of a fan ; the bees, wasps and their cousins have 

 four thin, membranous wings with few veins ; the dragon- 

 flies, may-flies and their kind have large, thin wings with 

 many finely-netted veins. 



Having learned to distinguish the insects from other 

 jointed creatures, and to determine the order to which each 

 insect belongs, we have added to our store of knowledge 

 and greatly increased our capacity for innocent enjoyment 

 and recreation — no small matter in what is too often made 

 a mere workaday world. It has taken but little time, has 

 been a pleasure in itself, and has cost almost no money at 

 all. Better still, the knowledge gained will stay with us 

 through life, will add to the enjoyment of every walk 

 abroad, and will increase our interest in much that we 

 read ; for so much attention is now paid to insects that one 

 is constantly coming upon allusions to them. 



So, if we never do more in this direction than to make 

 our seven piles of insects, or place them in seven rows, or, 

 better, pin them in seven boxes, it has been well worth 

 while. But few children, or grown people either, when 

 they have once begun, are willing to stop here. Having 

 learned to classify things, to separate one group from an- 

 other, they soon perceive that some of the insects in a row, 

 or box, or order, have something in common which other 

 insects in the same order do not have. Therefore, the or- 

 der can be divided naturally into smaller groups, and these 

 groups are called families. 



There are many more families than there are orders, as 

 there are more orders than classes and more classes than 

 branches in the animal kingdom. To learn all the fami- 



