"SOME COMMON INSECTS 



Field trip. On this trip take a couple of small boxes, a small bottle of 

 gasoline, and an insect net. The two latter items will be furnished you; 

 provide yourself with the boxes. Go out into a vacant lot, meadow, or 

 border of the woods. Turn over old logs, stones, and boards; rip the bark 

 off of stumps and capture any insects or other small animals encountered. 

 Watch clusters of flowers for butterflies and bees, pond margins or marshy 

 spots for dragon flies. Any of these insects except bees and wasps may be 

 picked up without danger, and these may be captured with a net; butter- 

 flies and dragon flies will also be so taken. Spill a few drops of gasoline on 

 the abdomen of insects, spiders, etc., to kill them; then keep them in the 

 box. Secure the following insects: a butterfly or good-sized moth, a 

 dragon fly, a squash bug or a stinkbug, a beetle, a locust or a grasshopper, 

 a bumblebee, a bluebottle fly or, better still, a horsefly. Spiders, thousand 

 legs, and sow bugs also will probably be found. Kill them with the gasoline 

 and bring in with the insects. 



Obtain a couple of crickets and put them alive into the small bottle. 



Insect cage. -Make an insect cage as follows: Fill a flowerpot four 

 inches or more in diameter with earth. Plant in it a spray of sweet clover 

 or other available plant. Set a lamp chimney into the earth over the plant 

 and tie a piece of cloth over the top. The earth should of course be kept 

 moist. 



The cricket. 



Feeding the cricket. Put the crickets into the insect cage. They will 

 be quite at home in this cage and will live for many days. Cut a thin, 

 wedge-shaped slice of apple and put it into the cage with the edge up. The 

 crickets will probably mount this and proceed to eat. Notice that the 

 cricket has several pairs of mouth parts, one pair of which is very horny and 

 serves to crush the food; the other pairs are used to hold the food as it is 

 eaten. These jaws are provided with little finger-shaped processes jointed 

 palps that serve the animal as feelers. How are these jaws moved as the 

 cricket eats ? 



Parts of a cricket. Notice on the head of the cricket the pair of long 

 feelers, or antennae. Can you demonstrate how. these function? Touch 

 one of the appendages at the end of a cricket's body and see if he is aware 

 of it. Notice next the large eyes, each occupying a good share of the side 



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