away for tlieni. Try to find out how many kinds of bugs eat the 

 tender, young seedlings. How many kinds eat the leaves? How many 

 kinds eat the grain or fruit? Watch the growing corn and cabbages 

 and potatoes and tomatoes, and do not forget the currant bushes and 

 grapes and fruit trees. Sometimes you will have to look closely, for 

 these dangerous insects are often so colored and marked as to almost 

 exactly imitate the part of the plant upon which they feed. 



Then insects injure man because of their attacks upon domestic an- 

 imals. Did j'ou think a fly could keep cattle out of a country? There 

 are some regions, especially in South Africa, where there is splendid 

 grass and plenty of water, but no cattle. The reason is that in those 

 regions there lives a fly known as the tsetze fly, which actually worries 

 the cattle to death. I cannot stop to tell you about the way in which 

 this is done, but perhaps if your father will tell you something about 

 the hot fly and the way it troubles cattle you can work it out for your- 

 self. Then others of these insects are hurtful because they destroy 

 those that help us. Do you know any one that keeps bees? If you 

 do, ask him to tell you about the bee-moth and other insects that spoil 

 the hjves. 



You see from what I have said that our bugs are of two kinds, 

 those that eat vegetable food and those that eat animal food. Try 

 how many different kinds of insects you can find that eat plant food 

 and how many that eat animal food. I suppose none of you think you 

 would be afraid of a flesh-eating insect. It might do to be afraid of 

 a bear or a lion, but no one would be afraid of an insect. Yet in some 

 places these fierce, flesh-eating insects at times gather in great num- 

 bers and march in unbroken lines across the country in their search 

 for new homes. Nothing can stop their march but fire or flood, and 

 if a man should attempt to force his way through such an army he 

 would be killed and eaten in a very short time. 



Even the plant-eating insects do their work of destruction very 

 rapidly. I have seen a forty-acre field of wheat entirely eaten in less 

 than two hours. Some time when you have found out all you can 

 about bugs with your eyes, I hope you will get a magnifying glass, and 

 then you can see the curious mouth-parts of these dangerous insects. 

 Some are like scissors and some like chisels and all are very strong and 

 powerful. 



When the bugs, which you have thought so uninteresting, have so 

 much to do with the success or failure of the year's work, don't you 

 think it would be wise to find out all you can aboiit them? I am sure 



