NATURE STUDY LESSONS. 137 



Nature Study Lessons. XIX. 



BY EDWARD J. BURNHAM. 



People in general know less about the Hemiptera, or 

 true bugs, than they do about the beetles and the butter- 

 flies and moths. They are for the most part disagreeable 

 and even repulsive in appearance, and include in their 

 number some of the most despised of all living creatures — 

 as the lice and the bedbugs. But they are well worthy of 

 study, nevertheless, both for themselves, as representing 

 a distinct form of insect life, and because many species do 

 a vast amount of harm to growing crops. The loss caused 

 by the Hemiptera in this country alone amounts to many 

 millions of dollars every year. 



Yet not all the Hemiptera are disagreeable or injurious. 

 Every boy and girl who is at all acquainted with the brooks 

 and ponds knows the Water Striders — the slender-legged 

 creatures that walk and even run upon the surface of the 

 water. Perhaps some were taken last summer, and if so, 

 they should be pinned in a row or box by themselves and 

 labeled Hydrobatidse, which is the name of the family to 

 which they belong. Other harmless and rather attractive 

 insects of this order are the Water-boatmen and the Back- 

 swimmers, lyike all the Hemiptera they have a sharp 

 beak with which they pierce the objects from which they 

 suck the juices. Some bugs suck the juices from plants, 

 others from animals, the Water-boatmen and Back-swim- 

 mers belonging to the class of animal feeders. They live 

 in the water, of course, and swim about very rapidly by 

 means of a pair of oar-like legs that are very long and very 

 strong. 



The Back-swimmers are the queerer, because their 

 backs are shaped like a boat and they swim about or rest 

 at the surface bottom side upward. Some kinds of these 



