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nd the head there is another distinct part. This is called the thorax, which means chest. Behind that there is a pointed part of the body, which is called the abdomen. Then, if you look again, you will see that all these little creatures are alike in that they have six jointed legs." "And are they all good, like the bee and the butterfly?" asked Betty, who wasn't always a good little girl herself, and who thought it would be much nicer if insects were naughty sometimes. "Not all, dear," answered Mrs. Reece; "some do us real service, but others are troublesome; insects are such hungry little fellows, and they don't have chocolate cake every day to keep them from getting hungry. They are hungry when they are babies and hungry when they grow up. Some eat all they can see--like a little boy I know--and some prefer the tender leaves and twigs. Some care only for the sweet sap flowing into the new leaves and buds. And still others like best the tender new roots of plants." "Mother, what are the baddest ones?" asked Betty. "Pooh! I know," said Jimmie; "the beetles are, because they eat everything. Why, they'd eat the buttons off your coat or the nose off your face or--" "Jim! Jim! do tell the truth! The beetles, and bugs, too, are the most troublesome. Many of the bugs are such tiny little creatures that it is hard to realize that they can hurt a plant. But bugs have sucking beaks. With these beaks they bore into the leaves or the buds of the plant, and then by means of tiny muscles at the back of the mouth they pump up the sap. To be sure, one little pump could do no harm; but think of millions of little sucking beaks, millions of little pumps busy at work on a single plant! Do you remember the pansies mother had in the winter, and how they were all covered by green plant-lice? Well, those are bugs called aphids. You remember they were pale green, just the color of the plant, and so transparent and soft they looked most harmless. The scale insects are very troublesome, too, but mother doesn't know anything about them." "Oh, I know what _they_ are," announced Jimmie, "they get into the fruit trees." "And sometimes onto shrubs, too. Mother has heard of a scale insect out in California which has been a great nuisance to fruit-growers. A certain ladybug finds this cottony-cushion scale a tender morsel, so many ladybugs were taken out there to help the owners of the fruit farms get rid of the scale." "Did they c
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