THE BEETLE. 



Speoimens for this lesson are obtained on warm May or Jnne 

 evenings, when the blandering brown May-bag, Jnne-bag, or dur- 

 bng (Figp. 1 and 2), as it is variously called, enters at every win- 

 dow left open after the evening lamps are lighted, and in its head- 

 long fashion goes bamping into anything and everything that stands 

 in its way. It is said that they may also be collected by shaking 

 the fruit trees, where they hide, at an early faonr in the morning, 

 when they do not attempt to fly, bat fall to the ground. These 

 beetles do so much harm in our gardens that we do not hesitate 

 to put as many as we need into our bottle of alcohol. For our in- 

 sect-boxes we pin beetles through the right wing-cover. 



Fio. 1. Fio. 2. 



The children are all sure this is a bug ; they have 

 always heard it called so, and the word beetle is not 

 found in their vocabulary. But Figs. 3 and 4 show that 

 the bug has a long sucking-tube, which the beetle has not. 

 This will be a suffitient distinction for the present, until 

 true bugs are studied. Now we call our specimen the 

 June-beetle. 



What has the beetle that the grasshopper and the 

 cricket have also ? 



It has the three parts of the body, — head, thorax, and 

 abdomen. It has three pairs of legs. It has two pairs 

 of wings. It has one pair of compound eyes. 



92 



