42 ELEMENTARY LESSONS ON INSECTS 



room, and measure its longest leap: how many times 

 the length of its body? 



2. Place it on a large horizontal pane of glass, and observe 

 its difficulties when the spines on its tibia cannot be 

 used effectively. 



3. Place it under a glass tumbler or bell jar and note the 

 size and arrangement of its legs : which are most used 

 in walking? in leaping? 



II. Respiration. Place a live specimen in a cyanide bottle 

 and as soon as it is stupefied observe : 



1. The opening and closing of the two lips that guard the 

 entrance to the large spiracle just above the base of a 

 middle leg. 



2. The bellows-like expanding and contracting of the 

 abdominal segments. Could a grasshopper be drowned 

 by holding its head under water? 



III. Feeding. Place a grasshopper that has been kept 

 without food for half a day under a tumbler with some fresh 

 leaves of clover or corn, and watch it eat. Observe the action 

 of the antennae, the feet, the jaws, the lips and the palpi. 



IV. Molting. If chance offers, if a grasshopper nymph 

 in the rearing cage happens to be undergoing a molt while 

 the class is in session, let it be used as demonstration, so 

 that all may see the remarkable sloughing off of the old 

 skeleton that permits free growth of the body.* The young 



* In absence of this opportunity, preserved specimens that have been 

 fixed in the act of molting may be shown. 



