FABRE'S BOOK OF INSECTS 



far as it will go, and bursts the sheath that has protected 

 it so far. The creature throws off its overall. 



Here, then, is the Decticus in his youthful shape, 

 quite pale still, but darker the next day, and a regular 

 blackamoor compared with the full-grown insect. As a 

 prelude to the ivory face of his riper age he wears a 

 narrow white stripe under his hinder thighs. 



Little Decticus, hatched before my eyes, life opens 

 for you very harshly! Many of your relatives must die 

 of exhaustion before winning their freedom. In my 

 tubes I see numbers who, being stopped by a grain of 

 sand, give up the struggle half-way and become furred 

 with a sort of silky fluff. Mildew soon absorbs their 

 poor little remains. And when carried out without my 

 help, their journey to the surface must be even more 

 dangerous, for the soil out of doors is coarse and baked 

 by the sun. 



The little white-striped nigger nibbles at the lettuce- 

 leaf I give him, and leaps about gaily in the cage where 

 I have housed him. I could easily rear him, but he 

 would not teach me much more. So I restore him to 

 liberty. In return for what he has taught me I give 

 him the grass and the Locusts in the garden. 



For he taught me that Grasshoppers, in order to 

 leave the ground where the eggs are laid, wear a tem- 

 porary form which keeps those too cumbrous parts, the 



[136] 



