Word: insectes
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Fortnight ago from Athens, Ga., came word that Dr. H. J. Miller, professor of botany at the University of Georgia, had found an insect parasite known as bracon mellitor which he believes can be used to combat Boll Weevil. Its larvae will devour weevil larvae inside the bolls without damaging the cotton. Familiar to all entomologists is the general principle of pest control by parasites.* But before he could put his discovery into common use Dr. Miller had to hit upon a commercially practical method of spreading bracon mellitor larvae through weevil-infested cotton fields...
...discovered 29 years ago when a cowboy, one Jim White, saw what he thought was volcanic smoke. The "smoke" was the effect of flocks of bats emerging for their evening insect hunt. The Government made the cave site a National Monument seven years ago, marking off 720 acres. The underground halls spread farther than that; how far, Explorer Nicholson will try to learn...
...starlings are the descendants of a small shipment brought from England in 1890 and loosed in Central Park, Manhattan. As in the case of English sparrows, imported 1850 by the Brooklyn Institute, the birds were to be used as insect killers. So troublesome did both starlings and English sparrows soon become that 25 years ago the Lacey law was passed prohibiting the importation of any variety of bird without the consent of the Secretary of Agriculture...
...larvae develop within the mosquito. Later the insect bites another human, disgorging at the instant one or more tiny worms. They burrow into the victim, seek out a lymph node, breed. Batches of them snarl themselves in the lymph passages causing inflammation, which blocks the free passage of lymph through the body. It backs up, causing swellings, particularly of the legs and groin in the Antilles. Affected parts grow massy. The skin thickens and crinkles like an elephant's. Hence the name elephantiasis for one aspect of the disease...
...Bedbug" is an intimate name for a small incredibly vicious insect of the hemipterous family Cimicidae. He is oval, fat, wingless and rich brown. He has piercing suctorial mouth-parts. The bedbug of Europe and U. S. is cimex lectularius; his more obese cousin, cimex rotundatus, infests the Orient. It is at night that he marauds, hiding in crevices in daytime. He confines his activities to man, whose blood he sucks, upon whose body he makes his permanent home. Among the bedbug's relations is the singing cicada, who lives on plants and, sucking, makes merry music. Unrelated...