114 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



ORTHOPTERA. 



Earwigs. Cockroaches. — Mantes, or Soothsayers. — Walking-leaves. 

 Walking-sticks, or Spectres. — Mole-Cricket. Field Crickets. Climb- 

 ing Cricket. Cucumber Skippers. Awl-bearer, or Wingless-Cricket. 

 Grasshoppers. Katy-did. Locusts. 



The destructive insects popularly known in this country by the 

 name of grasshoppers, but which, in our version of the Bible, 

 and in other works in the English language, are called locusts, 

 have, from a period of very high antiquity, attracted the attention 

 of mankind by their extensive and lamentable ravages. It should 

 here be remarked, that in America the name of locust is very 

 improperly given to the Cicada of the ancients, or the harvest-fly 

 of English writers, some kinds of which will be the subject of 

 future remark in this essay. The name of locust will here be 

 restricted to certain kinds of grasshoppers ; while the popularly 

 named locust, which, according to common belief, appears only 

 once in seventeen years, must drop this name and take the more 

 correct one of Cicada or harvest-fly. The very frequent mis- 

 application of names, by persons unacquainted with natural his- 

 tory, is one of the greatest obstacles to the progress of science, 

 and shows how necessary it is that things should be called by 

 their right names, if the observations communicated respecting 

 them are to be of any service. Every intelligent farmer is capa- 

 ble of becoming a good observer, and of making valuable dis- 

 coveries in natural history ; but if he be ignorant of the proper 

 names of the objects examined, or if he give to them names, 

 which previously have been applied by other persons to entirely 

 different objects, he will fail to make the result of his observa- 

 tions intelligible and useful to the community. 



The insects which I here call locusts, together with other 

 grasshoppers, earwigs, crickets, spectres or walking-sticks, and 

 walking-leaves, soothsayers, cockroaches, &c, belong to an order 

 called Orthoptera, literally straight-wings ; for their wings, 

 when not in use, are folded lengthwise in narrow plaits like a fan, 

 and are laid straight along the top or sides of the back. They 



