GRASSHOPPERS, KATYDIDS, 

 CRICKETS, ETC. 



(Order Orthoptera.) 



This is a large and important group of insects which com- 

 prises those forms which are i^nown as the straight-winged 

 insects and includes the grasshoppers, or true locusts, the long- 

 horned grasshoppers (including the katydids), the crickets, cock- 

 roaches, walking sticks and leaf insects, and the praying mantid<5 

 or rearhorses. In all these insects the mouth-parts are fitted for 

 biting and the metamorphoses are incomplete, the young when 

 hatching from the eggs resembling the adult except for the lack 

 of wings. The eggs are comparatively few in number and are 

 laid in specialized egg cases. The fore wings are somewhat 

 thickened and rather tough and horny as a rule, though not so 

 much so as the elytra of beetles and at rest lie closed on the back 

 of the insect so as to protect it and the hind wings. They are 

 called tegmina. The hind wings are much more delicate and 

 are the important ones in flight. They are furnished with 

 radiating veins somewhat like the sticks of a fan and have short 

 cross-veins forming a sort of network. In repose they fold like 

 a fan and are more or less covered by the fore wings. While the 

 order is not such an extensive one in number of species, it is one 

 of very great economic importance, largely through the ravages 

 which the migratory locusts, or short-horned grasshoppers, make 

 upon agricultural crops in various parts of the world and the 

 numbers in which not only these insects but certain other forms 

 occur, while their comparatively large size and frequently con- 

 spicuous appearance, make the group a noted one. 



As to size, the Orthoptera probably include the largest of 

 living insects and this is particularly the case in tropical countries. 

 Even in this country, however, it is doubtful whether any insect 

 exceeds in actual bulk the large lubber grasshoppers of our South- 



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