CHAPTER VII 



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Hemiptera : The True Bugs 



While the word bug has been in common English use 

 for a long time as applying to an insect of almost any kind, 

 the entomologists restrict the word to a certain group of 

 insects which they call Hemiptera or Half-winged Insects. 

 The mouth parts of the members of this order are formed 

 for sucking, and the transformations are incomplete, their 

 hfe changes resembling those of the grasshoppers rather 

 than those of the butterflies and moths. An immense 

 number of noxious insects are included in this group, 

 some of the most notorious being the Squash 

 Bug, Chinch Bug, the various kinds of aph- 

 ides or plant hce and of the scale insects or 

 bark lice, the Periodical Cicada, and many 

 other equally injurious pests. 



The life history of these insects is well il- 

 lustrated by that of the common Black Squash 

 Bug. This pest appears in. the garden in 

 early summer, and the females soon deposit 

 their eggs upon the young squash plants. 

 These eggs are small, rounded objects, more 

 or less triangular in their general outline. In 

 from six to fifteen days they hatch into tiny 

 bugs, which grow into the form and size of the parents. 



The newly hatched Squash Bug is more brilliantly colored 

 than at any later time in its hfe, and these colors make it 

 conspicuous against the green backgroimd of 

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Squash Bug 

 Magnified 



very 



the 



