INSECTS. 



255 



Pro. 242.- Squash- 

 bug {Anasa trig- 



tis). 



forms we need to say but little, but of the injurious forms a feu- words are 



necessary. 



First in order comes the universally distributed bed-bug, the terror of 

 all cleanly housekeepers. It is a thin, flat, foul-smelling 

 form, in which the wings are not at all developed. AYhere 

 the bed-bug started is unknown, but it has been distributed 

 over most parts of the world. 



The chinch-bug. well-known for its ravages in fields of 

 grain, and the larger, strong-smelling squash-bug are the 

 most familiar representatives of the forms with wings. 

 The damage they cause is sometimes considerable, but still 

 neither of them acquire that prominence which 

 at times characterizes the Rocky Mountain locust or the 

 grasshopper. 



Many of the allied forms are interesting from their 

 colors or strange shapes : some may be black and rounded, 

 so that they resemble a black bead ; others, flattened nearly 

 as thin as a sheet of paper, and colored exactly 

 like the bark beneath which they dwell. Some 



tig. 243. — Milyas i • •> . -, . , 



ductus. are as brightly painted as any butterfly, while 



others are as unpretentious as a Quaker. Again, 

 some may have the antennae flattened out into broad leaf-like 

 membranes, while others, like one figured on the plate opposite 

 page 250, have the legs modified in a similar way. To enum- 

 erate all these variations would take pages and volumes, and 

 so we leave the bugs with the remark that, as objects of beauty they 

 deserve more than the contempt with which they are usually treated. 



Fig. 244.— Podi- 

 sus spit 



with one wing 

 extended. 



Flies. 



The flies are two-winged insects (whence the name Diptera). \vi 

 typical form, the common house-fly. is familiar to all. The mouth parts 

 are wholly fitted for sucking, and in some cases, as in the familiar i 

 quito and black-fly, they are at the same time piercing-organs of no mean 

 capacities. On the other hand, in some forms they are not adapted for 

 piercing ; but only for taking liquid food, although they can at times 

 solids by first forcing out a small amount of saliva, which softens and 

 solves them so that they may be drawn up by means of a peculiar muscu- 

 lar • sucking-stomach,' which plays the part of a pump. The larvae of the 

 flies are footless, worm-like forms, familiar to all under the name of mag- 

 gots. They live some in animal and some in vegetable matter, and 



