The cricket is an insect that has won a special place in the affection of man. In many countries there are superstitions about crickets, such as that if one life in your house it is a sign of good luck, and that if one leaves your house this will mean bad luck. In Italy...

Have you ever heard the expression, "The female of the species is deadlier than the male"? Well, it certainly applies to mosquitoes. Only female mosquitoes suck blood. The bill of the female has some sharp piercing organs, arranged around a sucking tube.

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There is a moth known as "the clothes moth," and most people blame it for making the moth holes in our clothes, furs, and rugs. But the moth doesn't do this damage at all!

The moth never eats. It lives only to produce its eggs and then dies. It is whe...

Earthworms have been called the most important animals in the world! Important, of course, from the point of view of human beings, because the activity of the earthworms prepares the soil for vegetation, upon which life depends.

Earthworms turn the so...

About the only place in the world where you won't find any ants is on the summits of the very highest mountains. So as you might imagine there are thousands of different kinds of ants and how they live and what they eat depend on the species you are considering.

Let...

One might ask the question: What don't wasps use to build nests? For there is probably no other insect that has so many different forms of inter­esting architecture for its nest, and that uses so many different materials.

Wasps belong to the same fam...

To most of us, the most fascinating thing about spiders is the webs they spin. But actually a spider is an amazing creature in many other respects, too. Here are just a few of the remarkable facts about spiders.

They are found in every kind...

"Won't you come into my parlor?" said the spider to the fly. The tricky spider is pretty clever, isn't he? He knows the fly will be caught and he'll be able to scamper along and have himself a nice meal!

But if the sticky web clings to the...

Thousands of years ago China had learned the secret of making silk cloth from the fine web spun by a certain caterpillar in making its cocoon. This secret was jealously guarded, and anyone who carried silkworms or their eggs out of China was punishable by death! ...

Have you ever heard people say that a butterfly never eats? This happens to be true of some butterflies-and the reason lies in the story of how a caterpillar changes into a butterfly.

During her life, a female butterfly lays from 1...