DOOR-STEP NEIGHBORS 



8l 



meadow, but the furtlier fact that each mass is so 

 exactly landed upon the central stalk of grass or 

 other plant — "spitted" through its centre, as it 

 were. The true expectorator is within, laved in 

 his own home-made suds. If we care to blow or 

 scrape off the bubbles, we readily disclose him 

 — a green speckled 

 bug, about a third of 

 an inch in length in 

 larger specimens, with 

 prominent black eyes, 

 and blunt, wedge- 

 shaped body. 



In the appended 

 sketch I have indi- 

 cated two views of 

 him, back and profile, 

 creeping upon a grass , 

 stalk. A glance at 

 the insect tells the 



entomologist just where to place him, as he is 

 plainly allied to the cicadae, and thus belongs to 

 the order Heiniptei^a, or family of " bugs," which 

 implies, among other things, that the insect pos- 

 sesses a " beak for sucking." To what extent this 

 tiny soaker is possessed of such a beak may be in- 

 ferred from the amount of moisture with which 



