FOR THE U3E OF TEftCHERS . 



No. 15. 



Leaflet 



On Nature Study. 



Especially Adapted to the Use of Children in Schools 

 IN Rural Districts. 



PREPARED BY THE 



FACULTY OF PURDUE UNIVERSITY. 



OUR INSECT FRIENDS. 



By Prof. James Troop. 



In a former Leaflet you were told that fully four-fifths of all the 

 animal Hfe upon the globe belongs to the great tribe of insects. Now, 

 do you not think that it would be very strange, indeed, if, among all 

 of the many thousands of different kinds with which we are daily 

 surrounded during the summer, there were not some which we could 

 call our friends? Have you ever thought about it? Is it not true 

 that you have been in the habit of thinking of every kind of insect as 

 being your enemy? I suspect that you have sometimes called the 

 honey bee hard names because it stung you when you got too near its 

 hive or because you pinched it when it was quietly sipping the sweet 

 nectar from a flower in the garden. And I imagine that you have 

 thought of the bumble bee as a good-for-nothing old fellow when you 

 knocked him off a clover blossom and then accidentally stepped upon 

 him with your bare foot. In each case the bee was simply trying to 

 protect itself against such harsh treatment. I suppose that you did 

 not stop to think that the honey bee was working hard at that moment 

 in storing up honey for your benefit, and that without the bumble 

 bee your father's clover plants would not produce any seeds, and that 

 without clover seed we should have no clover. 



I think that you can see that our insect friends may do us good in 

 many different ways. For example, some may give us something 



