putney] A GRASSHOPPER'S EARLY LIFE 129 



A butterfly, when it is hatched comes out in the larval or cater- 

 pillar form, crawls around, a general nuisance, eats rather slow- 

 ly and yet greedily, outgrows itself and seeks rest in the little 

 cocoon that it spins, from which it will emerge an adult. The 

 grasshopper does nothing like this. To be sure, it eats vora- 

 ciously and grows rapidly ; it is just as much of a nuisance , but 

 we do not think of it as such inasmuch as it does not get quite 

 as neighborly as the caterpillar and stays away from house and 

 building unless it has been hatched among leaves of shade trees. 

 But as it grows it sheds its skin; the next covering is not quite 

 as tight and there is room for expansion. This goes on for per- 

 haps four or five times when behold, the adult grasshopper ap- 

 pears! The young are very, very numerous, sometimes covering 

 the vegetation like a carpet; they are wingless and crawl around 

 only within a limited area, as compared to the ever moving cat- 

 erpillar. But as you look at them you see after each moulting 

 the traces of the wings that are to come forth at the final moult- 

 ing. Then when the last step is taken how good that chap does 

 feel to think that he can fly and jump around like his father! 



Were it not for the fact that the grasshopper is such a nuis- 

 ance, we would call him one of the most interesting of our little- 

 creature neighbors. We might even term him a friend and watch his 

 development with intense interest; but, unfortunately, the grass- 

 hopper, and especially the locust that migrates from place to 

 place, is a pest and we do the best we can to exterminate him. 

 Instead of encouraging, we discourage his stay with us. About 

 the only good I ever knew a grasshopper to be, was as food 

 for turkeys. The old farmer will tell you that the best turkeys 

 he ever raised fed upon grasshoppers which were exceptionally 

 abundant those years. 



THE BLACK SWALLOW-TAIL 



One of the most interesting of our butterflies is the black swal- 

 low-tail which is best seen in September. Let us go back 

 a little., before we study the butterfly itself, and see what the 

 caterpillar looks like. This fellow is a "saddle-back"; that is, 

 he has a white saddle in the middle of his back and this pecu- 

 liar coloring helps to protect the caterpillar, for in this way it 

 assumes the color variations of the twigs upon which it feeds. 



