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Handbook of Nature-Study 



VI. INSECT STUDY 



^ \i NSECTS are among the most interesting and available of 

 all living creatures for nature-study. The lives of 

 many of them afford more interesting stories than are 

 found in fairy lore; many of them show exquisite colors 

 and, more than all, they are small and are, therefore, 

 easily confined for observation. 



While the young pupils should not be drilled in 

 insect anatomy, as if they were embryo zoologists, yet it 

 is necessary for the teacher, who would teach intelli- 

 gently, to know something of the life stories, habits and 

 structure of the common insects. Generally speaking, 

 all insects develop from eggs. To most of us the 

 word egg brings before us the picture of the egg of the hen or of some 

 other bird. But insect eggs are often far more beautiful than those of any 

 bird ; they are of widely differing forms, and are often exquisitely colored 

 and the shells may be ornately ribbed and pitted, sometimes adorned 

 with spines, and are as beautiful to look at through a microscope as the 

 most artistic piece of mosaic. 



From the eggs, larvae [sing, larva) issue. These larvae may be 

 caterpillars, or the creatures commonly called worms, or may be maggots 



The egg of the cotton moth, greatly enlarged. 

 From Manual for the Study of Insects. 



or grubs. The larval stage is always devoted to feeding and to growth. 

 It is the chief business of the larva to eat diligently and to attain maturity 

 as soon as possible; for often the length of the larval period depends 

 more upon food than upon lapse of time. All insects have their skele- 

 tons on the outside of the body; that is, the outer covering of the body is 

 chitinous, and the soft and inner parts are attached to it and supported 



The forest tent-cater pillar shedding its skin. 



Photo by M. V. Slingerland. 



