THE AMERICAN BOYS' BOOK of BUGS, BUTTERFLIES and BEETLES the Trail Blazers Series
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ll 3 3333 'S^'^'^™||1J11 I. GS<»r.7 3 Acosi^i?iPf«^e»'*'--^- THE ('F^''!'F"J, CHILDREN'S ROOM DH"- Y^ CENTER NEW YORK, N.Y. 10019 > •* .) ^> THE AMERICAN BOYS' BOOK OF BUGS, BUTTERFLIES AND BEETLES The Trail Blazers Series Boys of all ages from twelve to ninety are setting the seal of their approval upon these volumes. In addition to being stories of breathless adventure, each book pictures certain phases of American history which are not very well known. This background of history gives added pleasure and profit in the reading. GOLD SEEKERS OF '49 By EDWIN L. SARIN. Illustrated in color and black and white by Chas. H. Stephens. _i2mo. Cloth. $1.25 net. Postage extra. BUFFALO BILL AND THE OVERLAND TRAIL By EDWIN L. SABIN. Illustrated in color and black and white by Chas. H. Stephens. i2mo. Cloth. $1.25 net. Postage extra. ON THE PLAINS WITH CUSTER By EDWIN L.' SABIN. Illustrated by Chas. H Stephens. Frontispiece in color. i2mo. Cloth. $1.25 net. Postage extra. WITH CARSON AND FREMONT By EDWIN L. SABIN. Illustrated. i2mo. Cloth. $1.25 net. Postage extra. CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH By C. H. FORBES-LINDSAY. Four illustrations in color. Cloth. $1.25 net. Postage extra. DANIEL BOONE : Backwoodsman By C. H. FORBES-LINDSAY. Illustrated. i2mo. Cloth. $1.25 net. Postage extra. DAVID CROCKETT: Scout By CHARLES FLETCHER ALLEN. Illustrated in color and black and white by Frank McKernan. i2mo. Cloth. $1.25 net. Postage extra. J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY PUBLISHERS PHILADELPHIA THE AMERICAN BOYS BOOK OF BUGS, BUTTERFLIES AND BEETLES DAN BEARD FOUNDER OF THE FIRST BOY SCOUTS 80CIETT AUTHOR OF "AMERICAN BOYS' HANDY BOOK," ETC. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR '> >•> 3 ^ y 3 i :i i ] } ) PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 1915 I THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY ox AJD T.ILDEN I-UJNDATIONS. C i- COPYRIGHT, I915. BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY PUBLISHED NOVEMBER, IQIS • Ci « » " c r , < I C t L >^ < ' t B ' *- t I « O C C C O t c O c <" t < C C I t I C 1. t t t (. c- *• »- O < I C I c c c c ' t c c c * o« c t c CO c '^ » o '^c t I f I c C c c c t c C c « C t € t C t. PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS PHILADELPHIA, PA. i5 ACKNOWLEDGMENT For the use and arrangement of insects on colored plates we are indebted to the American Museum of Natural His- tory and particularly to Dr. Frederick Lucas and Dr. Frank Eugene Lutz, for their sympathetic and generous aid in the work. > y i ) > > > jjjj 3, JJ 3 )J '',\5,3 0»» »>O0 0» ' ,333^ I :> 99 3%-i-5 > ^^3333 J333 ) ) 3 ^3^3333 »3,-5 J«»3-J 3 j9 3^3 3 3 J 3 3 / ^ i ^' i 3 3 y i i 3, J 33333 3 , , 3 33 3j3jjjj-'3J J J3J^3 3, J 333 3 O -33 •3, 03 ,-"33 3 3333 Jj-' 33 33-" 33 3 33 333 33333 3 O y 9 i i tJ -i 3J .33 ^ 3 c c c t c c c c c c c c c c c t .- t t » p c • "cc c t c < • c c c t c « c^ * c« c *. •^•^ ' C I « c I* 'nt • c '^1 eec c « c t fee c t t c c t U I e <- « I ^i c t I c t CONTENTS PAGE Fore Talk: A Fore Talk About Insects, Bug-a-Boos, Bug-Bears, Bug-Houses and Hum-Bugs. How the Writer Learned the Life History of Beetles How He Used Them for . — Horses . 1 CHAPTER ONE ' Building a Make-Believe Insect. Comparing a Beetle wth a Boy 18 CHAPTER TWO How to Equip Oneself for Collecting Insects. How to Impro- vise Bottles for Alcoholic Specimens. How to Have Poison Bottles Made. How to Make Drying Boards and Specimen Boxes. How to Make Butterfly Nets and How to Use Them 30 CHAPTER THREE The Butterfly and Moth Faahly 54 CHAPTER FOLU American Silk-Worms and Giant Night-Butterflies, Moths, or Millers 66 CHAPTER FIVE American Royalty 100 CHAPTER SIX Sphinx and Hawk Millers, Jug-Handles and Tobacco Worms. Notch-Winged Moths 108 CHAPTER SE\TEN Sunshine Moths. Clear-Winged Millers. Humming-Bird Moths. The White Death. Fruit Borers and Squash- Vine Miller 115 CHAPTER EIGHT Under-Wing Miller. Tiger and Leopard Millers. Yellow Bears. Hobo Caterpillars 121 vii viii Contents CHAPTER NINE Pestiferous Millers, Tent Caterpillars, Army Worms, Dis- reputable Cut-Worms and the End of the Moth Talks .... 132 CHAPTER TEN The Swallow-Tailed Butterflies, Parsley "Worms," Ichneu- mons, the Green-Clouded Swallow-Tail, the Tiger Swallow- Tail, and the Zebra Swallow-Tail 147 CHAPTER ELE\^EN White Cabbage Butterfly, Yellow Butterfly, the Gossamers, Copper and Blue Gossamers, the Monarch Butterfly, the Viceroy Butterfly, the Aphrodite and Myrina Butterflies. The Phaeton Butterfly, Angel-Wing Butterflies, the L Butterfly, the Antiopa Butterfly, the Red Admiral, the Brow^nies and the Skipper Butterfly 166 CHAPTER TWELVE Coleoptera. Names of Parts of a Beetle. Grubworms and Where and How to Collect Beetles. Living Submarines and Hydroplanes. A Doodle Trap. Pet Beetles. Whirli- gigs. Lions and Tigers of the Ponds. How Divers Carry Air Under Water 190 CHAPTER THIRTEEN Tiger Beetles. Hobgoblins' Dens and a Real Magic Trick. Caterpillar Hunters. Blind Harpalus Beetles and Other Blind Insects in Mother Nature's Cave for the Blind. Carrion Beetles. Undertaker and Grave-Digger Beetles. Amusing Facts About Carrion Beetles, Flies and Rove Beetles 211 CHAPTER FOURTEEN The Destructive Skin-Eater (Dermestes), Fond of One's Speci- mens, Carpets and Furniture. Stag Beetles or Pinch-Bugs. The Goldsmith Beetle. June Bugs. The Spotted Pelidnota or Grape-Vine Beetle 226 CHAPTER FIFTEEN Tumble-Bugs Useful as Scavengers. A Novel Method of Mak- ing Modern Antique Scarabs. Sawhorn Beetles, Snap-Bugs OR Spring Beetles. A Snap-Bug Spirit Seance. Fire-Flies or Lightning Bugs 239 Contents ix CHAPTER SIXTEEN Dead-Beat Stylops. Weevils. Pea Weevils and Other Evils. Baltimore Oriole's Fondness for Grub of the Pea Weevil. Goat- or Capricorn-Beetles. Leaf-Beetles. Potato-Bugs. Elm-Beetles. Undesirable Citizens and Lady-Bugs 251 CHAPTER SE\^NTEEN Bugs, Beginning with Some of the I/Owest, Most Degraded OF the Bug Family. Parasite Dead-Beats and Outcast Bugs. Plant Lice. Scales and Aphides 270 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Leaf and Tree Hoppers. Grotesque and Commercial Insects. Cuckoo-Spit. Harvest Fly, Locust and Seventeen-Year Locusts. A Methuselah Among Insects. Seventeen-Year Locusts Attend a Ball in Kentucky. How They Saw Holes IN the Twigs. How They are Preyed upon by Dragon-Flies AND Wasps. Harmless Playmates. Pupa Skins as Toys .... 280 CHAPTER NINETEEN Water Bugs. Cakes of Water-Bugs' Eggs. Water Boatmen. Water Scorpions. Beware of Water-Bugs' Sting. Giant Water-Bug. Water-Bug Suffragist. Gentle Water-Bug as A Nurse Girl. Skaters or Gliders 289 THE AMERICAN BOYS' BOOK OF BUGS, BUTTERFLIES AND BEETLES FORE TALK A FORE TALK ABOUT INSECTS, BUG-A-BOOS, BUG-BEARS. BUG-HOUSES AND HUM-BUGS HOW THE WRITER LEARNED THE LIFE HISTORY OF BEETLES—HOW HE USED THEM FOR HORSES. Among the little folk of this world known as the insects, we find almost as many traits of char- acter as we do among the human beings. We have the idle insects, the industrious insects, the warlike insects, the robber insects, the dead-beat insects, the stupid insects and the intelligent insects. We also have among them the low, degraded insects, dirty insects, clean insects, the sluggish slow-moving in- sects, the bright lively insects, the useful insects and the beautiful insects ; all of them are interesting, all of them in one way or another are of vast impor- tance to man, and a study of their habits is not only a source of fun but it is also a most useful study. Besides which, boys, nature lovers live longer and happier lives than ordinary people 1 2 Bugs, Butterflies, and Beetles Probably the first collection the reader will want to make will be butterflies, not because butterflies have more interesting lives or bodies, or even are the most beautiful, for some beetles rival the butterflies in beauty, but because but- terflies are better advertisers than any of the rest of the insects. They display their beauties, at- tract the attention of the boys and even of the more stupid grown people. I say stupid grown people, because one boy of twelve who is alert and fond of nature will see and observe more things than the best-trained naturalist of thirty. A boy of twelve has not had his mind bothered by worldly things which dull the perception of a man, consequently the boy will see more, feel more, hear more, and smell more than the older person. Not long since I was in the Smithsonian In- stitution at Washington in one of the private rooms not open to the general public and there I was shown drawer after drawer of butterflies, some of them so closely resembling each other that only a scientist could detect the points of difference, and enough of them to probably cover an acre or more of ground. Few of my readers will want to make such a vast Fore Talk 3 collection as that at the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, and probably none of them ever will, for the collection at the National Capital is made up of the contributions of many, many collectors, but some of my readers may contribute to the col- lection at Washington or exchange specimens with the people at Washington, whom they will find ever ready to assist them in their work and encourage them in their study.