ture of one very much enlarged. No wings, no beauty, a pale
white thing, all claws and mouth.

[Illustration]

It has a long sucking tube by which it pierces the skin, and a sucking
stomach by which it pumps the blood into its mouth.

Such creatures are called parasites.

Yes, bed bugs are parasites too.

Besides the lice that live on human beings, there are species that
infest animals.

BIRD LICE AND BOOK LICE

Bird lice are not lice!

That is, they do not belong to the bug order.

They belong to a small order by themselves, but they are parasites like
the lice.

The little white book lice that scurry away when we open an old book
that has been standing on the back shelf, are not lice, either; they
also belong to a little order of their own, and are constructed very
differently from the true lice.

FRIEND CICADA

WHIR-R-R-R-RRRRR!!

May says she wishes that locust would keep quiet. It makes her warmer
than ever to hear him carrying on so this hot day.

John says it is the weather that is warm, not the song of the locust.

And yet, locusts generally sing during the hottest part of the summer,
so that we have learned to associate them with warm weather.

Since we must listen to its shrill out-cry, I wish we could also see
it.

Ah, that is a wish soon gratified! Here comes one out of John's pocket.

[Illustration]

John says it is _not_ a locust.

Ah, yes, the shorthorned grasshoppers are the real locusts, and this
fellow has somehow got the name.

But it is not a locust.

It is also called the dog-day harvest fly, but it is not a fly, though
it looks considerably like one.

Really, you know, it is a--bug!

Yes, it belongs to the bug order.

Its true name is cicada, and its shrill midsummer song has been famous
from the beginning of time.

[Illustration]

It looks like an enormous fly, but its mouth parts are the mouth parts
of the bug, and in other respects it resembles the members of the bug
order, when it is examined closely.

What glassy wings!

Let us spread them out carefully. Four of them it has.

The cicada, you see, has no wing covers. Nor are its upper wings, half
wing cover, and half wing, like those of so many of the bugs.

No, all four of its wings are alike, and all four are flying wings.

When it is at rest, the inner wings slip out of sight under the outer
ones, which fold down like a roof over its body.

See how beautifully the wings, are veine