THE SAVAGE WORLD. 
243 
like threads, which, being the most striking feature, are seized by pursuing 
birds. The insect bites off this, to him non-essential member, and thus enjoys 
an April fool, while the hunter secures but a cotton muffin. 
Plant Lice are oval, green in color, and have long, slender antennae. In 
many cases they are used by the ant as milch cows. 
The Bed-Bug pumps instead of sticking blood. It is too familiar an insect 
to require a description, though it may be said that as a subject for the micro¬ 
scope it has an interest which it altogether lacks when regarded as an unwel¬ 
come intruder into our houses. The bed-bug deposits its eggs four times a year 
—March, May, July and September—and fifty is the usual number of a brood, 
which mature in eleven weeks. It appeared in England after the “ Great Fire” 
and is supposed to have been imported with the timber used in repairing 
the losses. The bed-bug is called a “Norfolk Howard” in Great Britain, owing 
to a story to the following effect: A person being named Bug, and Bug being 
restricted to the bed-bug , grew sufficiently weary of constant but poor jokes and 
witticisms. Having secured from Parliament a change of his name to Norfolk 
Howard, the wicked punsters transferred the new name to the insect, and thus 
again proved that “ the 
best-laid plans of men 
and mice gang aft aglee.” 
The Coleoptera 
(sheath-winged) Bee¬ 
tles are six-legged, have 
chewing mouth organs, 
horny fore-wings, and 
their metamorphosis is 
essentially radical. The 
wings are, when not in 
use, protected by sheaths 
(elytra); in the species 
whose wings are rudi¬ 
mentary the elytra form 
a protection for the ab¬ 
domen. It is said that 
upwards of seventy-five thousand species have already been distinguished and 
described by persistent entomologists, whose delight is in the pursuit. 
The Colorado potato-bug , or beetle , has been spread as an incident of com¬ 
merce and transportation. The carpet beetle is a European immigrant. The 
meal, or flour beetle (Tenebrio molitor) , and the grain weevil (Cal an dr a granaria ), 
are likewise illustrations of the importations of pauper labor from Europe. 
The beetle furnishes an inviting subject for the student of entomology because 
it is numerous, easily obtainable, capable of being reared, and because there 
remains ample opportunity for original discovery. The antennae serve the 
double function of feelers and of a nose. The front wings seem to serve the 
use of a ship’s rudder, and the hinder wings that of its propeller. The organs 
of hearing have not yet been located, but naturalists unite in asserting that the 
beetle has this sense. The creation of sound is effected by friction of the legs, 
wings or body; usually by rubbing the hind legs against a segment of the 
' abdomen. 
