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  OUR COMMON INSECTS.

  [Illustration: AMERICAN SILK WORM (MALE).]




  OUR

  COMMON INSECTS.

  A POPULAR ACCOUNT OF THE INSECTS

  OF OUR

  Fields, Forests, Gardens and Houses.


  Illustrated with 4 Plates and 268 Woodcuts.

  BY

  A. S. PACKARD, JR.,

  Author of "A GUIDE TO THE STUDY OF INSECTS."

  SALEM.
  NATURALISTS' AGENCY.
  BOSTON: Estes & Lauriat. NEW YORK: Dodd & Mead.
  1873.

  Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by
  F. W. PUTNAM & CO.,
  in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

  PRINTED AT
  THE SALEM PRESS,
  F. W. PUTNAM & CO.,
  Proprietors.




DEDICATION.

TO SAMUEL H. SCUDDER.


MY DEAR SCUDDER:--You and I were drawn together many years ago by a
common love for insects and their ways.

I dedicate this little volume of ephemeral essays to you in recognition
of your worth as a man and a scientist, and as a token of warm
friendship.

  Yours sincerely,

  A. S. PACKARD, JR.




PREFACE.


This little volume mainly consists of a reprint of a series of essays
which appeared in the "American Naturalist" (Vols. i-v, 1867-71). It is
hoped that their perusal may lead to a better acquaintance with the
habits and forms of our more common insects. The introduction was
written expressly for this book, as well as Chapter XIII, "Hints on the
Ancestry of Insects." The scientific reader may be drawn with greater
interest to this chapter than to any other portion of the book. In this
discussion of a perhaps abstruse and difficult theme, his indulgence is
sought for whatever imperfections or deficiencies may appear. Our
systems of classification may at least be tested by the application of
the theory of evolution. The natural system, if we mistake not, is the
genealogy of organized forms; when we can trace the latter, we establish
the former. Considering how much naturalists differ in their views as to
what is a natural classification, it is not strange that a genealogy of
animals or plants seems absurd to many. To another generation of
naturalists it must, perhaps, be left to decide whether to attempt the
one is more unphilosophical than to attempt the other.

Most of the cuts have already appeared in the "Guide to the Study of
Insects" and the "American Naturalist," where their original sources are
given, while a few have been kindly contributed by Prof. A. E. Verrill,
the Boston Society of Natural History, and Prof. C. V. Riley, and three
are original.

SALEM, June, 1873.




OUR COMMON INSECTS.

INTRODUCTORY.


_What is an Insect?_ When we remember that the insects alone comprise
four-fifths of the animal kingdom, and that there are upwards of 200,000
living species, it would seem a hopeless task to define what an insect
is. But a common plan pervades the structure of them all. The bodies of
all insects consist of a succession of rings, or segments, more or less
hardened by the deposition of a chemical substance called chitine; these
rings are arranged in three groups: the head, the thorax, or middle
body, and the abdomen or hind body. In the six-footed insects, such as
the bee, moth, beetle or dragon fly, four of these rings unite early in
embryonic life to form the head; the thorax consists of three, as may be
readily seen on slight examination, and the abdomen is composed either
of ten or eleven rings. The body, then, seems divided or _insected_ into
three regions, whence the name _insect_.

The head is furnished with a pair of antennae, a pair of jaws
(mandibles), and two pairs of maxillae, the second and basal pair being
united at their base to form the so-called labium, or under lip. These
four pairs of appendages represent the four rings of the head, to which
they are appended in the order stated above.

A pair of legs is appended to each of the three rings of the thorax;
while the first and second rings each usually carry a pair of wings.

The abdomen contains the ovipositor; sometimes, as in the bees and
wasps, forming a sting. In the spiders (Fig. 1), however, there are no
antennae, and the second maxillae, or labium, is wanting. Moreover, there
are four pairs of legs. The centipedes (Fig. 2, a Myriopod) also differ
from the rest of the insects in having an indefinite number of abdominal
rings, each bearing a pair of legs.

[Illustration: 1. Spider (Tegenaria).]

On examining the arrangement of the parts within, we find the nervous
cord, consisting of two chains of swellings, or nerve-knots, resting
upon the floor or under side of the body; and the heart, or dorsal
vessel, situated just under the skin of the back; and in looking at
living caterpillars, such as the cut-worm, and many thin-skinned aquatic
larvae, we can see this long tubular heart pulsating about as often as
our own heart, and when the insect is held against its will, or is
agitated, the rapidity of the pulsations increases just as with us.

[Illustration: 2. Centipede.]

Insects do not breathe as in the higher animals by taking the air into
the mouth and filling the lungs, but there are a series of holes or
pores along the side of the body, as seen in