46 ELEMENTARY LESSONS ON INSECTS 



molting. From all these determine the answer to the follow- 

 ing questions: 



1. Has the young grasshopper, when first hatched from 

 the egg, any wings? (Use lens in determining.) 



2. Where does the skin split open when molting occurs? 



3. What part of the insect comes out first? Last? 



4. What organs are relatively best developed and what 

 least developed in early stages? For what organs has 

 the newly hatched grasshopper most use? 



If then we examine one of the pygmy hoppers we shall 

 find the prothorax remarkably developed, the head being 

 set deeply into its front end and the entire body to rearward 

 is over-reached by a long process from the dorsal shield. 

 The forewings, also, are reduced to a pair of little scales, 

 that peep from underneath the edges of this process. 



II. Long-horned grasshoppers. With a specimen of a 

 conehead, or a katydid or any other true meadow grass- 

 hopper in hand the following characteristic structures should 

 be noted: 



1. The length and slenderness of the antennae. 



2. The thin-bladed, sword-like ovipositor of the female 

 (short and curving in the katydids, long and straightish 

 in the others). Prepared slide mounts may be used to 

 study its composition. This type of ovipositor is well 

 adapted for thrusting eggs into deep crevices, such 

 as those within sheathing leaves and scales. 



3. The organ of hearing, located in the swollen base of 

 the front tibia, in an oval depression. 



