Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1878-04-24

1t is known fact that nearly everything
in nature likes music; snakes have danced
to it, mice have come from their holes and
listened with rapt attention, and even bugs
are not insensible to its charms.
| 1--WE call the Doodle Bugs up any time
we have mind,' said some little girls to
me one day when l was teaching school in
Western Virginia.
Doodle Bugsp" said I. Il never
heard of such things"
Would you like to see them?" asked
one.
Most assuredly," l answered.
Then the little girls led me forth to the
ruins of an old log school house, roohess
and foorless, and joining hands they
squatted upon the ground, forming ring,
and began chanting in the most musical
tones they could command:
Uncle Doodle, Uncle Doodle, Uncle
Doodle Bugs!"
looked on in establishment, for | could
see nothing but hard baked earth. There
seemed not living thing visible; but the
children kept up their chant some three or
four minutes, when l noticed the ground
began 10 heave in little spots. and tiny
heads peeped out, followed by half or the
whole body of n dirt colored beetle.
When the children stopped singing the
little things scampered back into their
holes.
This struck me as very singular. But
then, we are continually meeting with
strange things in Bugdom. 1t is like fairy
land if we only become interested.
There are many, many kinds Of beetles
called coeopterous insects, because they
have shells or cases on their backs, under
which they fold their wings. A great
many live under the ground, and others
on the trees, flowers and grain. Indeed,
there is scarce place where you may not
find them.
All of you know that the ugly caterpillar
becomes butterfly, but some of you may
not know that nearly every worm you can
find turns out some day to be a creature
with wings.
Almost every child who has lived in the
country has noticed, and perhaps been
very much amused with the Bill Chaftr,
or Tumble Bug, rs we call it here in New
Jersey. How they seemed to be playing
with marbles right in the middle of the
road on hot, dusty days! How they push
and tumble, and get their jackets all dusty
in their efforts! Sometimes it takes two
or three beetles to roll their ball up an ele.
walton, or over some impedient in the way
Did you never wonder what all such
work meant, or did you suppose it wa:
lust the way those bugs have of amusing
themselves? l can remember when
thought so myself. But after l became
older began to wonder where the
bugs got the balls. what they were
made Of and what they were going to dc
with them. | have since found out, and il
is all very interesting.
They make the balls out of the excre
ton of animals, in which they deposit 81
egg. leaving it in the sun until it is baked
almost MS hard rs u marble; then begin
their work. They toll and struggle unit
they get the balls three feet under ground
Then the little one is left in its spherical
home from early September until the mex
spring, as warm and cosy as you please
growing larger and larger until it burs
from its shell, little worm with six legs
and creeps up to the surface of the grounC
or, as some say, they remain in balls unit
they become chrysalids, and come on
beetles or tumble bugs, ready to begir
tumbling and pushing like their mothers
before them Wide AOake.