54 INSECTS 



The order Orthoptera, as a whole, consists of plant 

 feeders: from the earwigs to the crickets there are 

 only a few groups where vegetation is not the chief 

 or only food. The earwigs are curious because of 

 their resemblance to beetles and their large anal for- 

 ceps, and they feed largely in, though not always on 

 flowers. Not many occur in North America and their 

 chief interest lies in the fact that the female broods 

 over her eggs after they are laid: an altogether unusual 

 character in this series of species. The roaches are 

 not normally troublesome to growing vegetation and 

 are of most interest as household pests, where more 

 is said of them. The Mantidce or graspers is the 

 only group of distinctively predatory species in the 

 order and they are very few in number. The PhasmidcB 

 or "walking sticks" are devourers of plant tissue, 

 interesting because of their resemblance to the twigs 

 and leaves among which they live, and because of 

 their habit of dropping their eggs to the ground with- 

 out care as to their location and future ; as far removed 

 as possible from the habit of the earwigs. Their injury 

 to the plants is of the simplest possible description 

 and confined to a partial destruction of foliage, which 

 means little or nothing to the plant. 



The grasshoppers, on the other hand, are among 

 the best known of plant destroyers. Under the name 

 "locusts" their ravages have been written of in the 

 Bible and by later writers on conditions in Africa and 

 the Mediterranean countries. The migratory locust 

 has thus come to represent the very type of destruc- 

 tive invasion, and the Rocky Mountain locust or grass- 

 hopper in our own country is not less well and unfavor- 

 ably known for its injuries. 



The short-horned grasshoppers, which are the 

 species now under consideration, quite usually lay 



