The Insect Folk

by Margaret Warner Morley

When the young ones hatch out they look like their parents, only, of course, they are tiny little dots of things that have no wings.

But they eat and grow and moult like other larvæ until they are full-grown insects.

What have you discovered, Ned? You look surprised.

The water boatman has no antennæ!

It doesn't seem to have any. But look carefully and I think you will find some tiny ones tucked away under its head.

Nell wants to know if the water boatman has a thorax and an abdomen.

Indeed, it has, but you will have to look carefully to see them. Its abdomen is short and thick and hard. The water boatman is much more compact in form than the Orthoptera, or any of the other insects we have studied.

You are right, John, an insect with a long abdomen, like the grasshopper, could not get on very well in the water.

Now, May, take the cover off the tumbler. There!