Ho! ho! _is_ it Mr. Walking Stick?
You look again.
Mollie thinks, if she were going to name it, she would call it Mr.
Walking Threads.
Yes, it is more slender than even the walking stick.
What is that, John? You thought insects had six legs, and this has only
four?
Now, here is something for us to think about.
Ned says it has six long threads that might be legs, but it does not
walk on the two front ones.
It seems to use them as antennæ.
[Illustration]
Ned says those front ones look to him to be jointed just like the
others, and he thinks they are legs.
Mollie says they have no little feet like the others, and she thinks
they are antennæ.
Well, well, what are we to do? Think of its having feelers that look
like legs or legs that look like feelers, so that you cannot tell which
they are!
Now it is beginning to move, and--Oh, ho, that long part in front is not
its head!
[Illustration]
See, it separates into two--what?
Surely, two front legs.
See, they were folded up, somewhat like the front legs of the mantis,
only these could fold close together, being threadlike.
So the long threads are antennæ after all.
Now it has raised its head, which we easily see is quite round, with
tiny eyes, and the antennæ are growing out from the front of it.
What is it? A walking stick? A mantis?
[Illustration]
Why! why! There it goes, sailing off in the air with a queer little
fluttering motion of its whole body.
It has wings!
John has caught it and brought it back.
Now let us see those wings, you strange little creature.
You will have to look close, but there they are, narrow, short, such
tiny wings! How _do_ you suppose it flies with them?
You seem queerer and queerer the more we look at you, little
what-shall-we-call-you.
But we know you are not a walking stick because our walking sticks have
no wings.
The truth is you are a--bug!
Yes, this little threadlike creature belongs to the same order as the
big flat giant water bug.
It grasps its victim, in its fore feet like the mantis, but instead of
biting its prey it sucks out the juices.
You would hardly expect such a delicate creature to catch and kill other
insects, yet such is the case.
No, I do not think it will pierce your finger with its beak. I have
often handled them, and have never been stung by one. We often see them
walking about in the grass and along paths.