ORTHOPTERA. 



125 



ORTHOPTERA. 



Earwigs. Cockroaches. — Mantes, or Soothsayers. — Walking Leaves, 

 Walking Sticks, ok Spectres. —Mole-Cuicket. Field Crickets. Climb- 

 ing Cricket. Wingless-Cricket. Grasshoppers. Katy-did. Locusts. 



The destructive insects popularly known in this country by 

 the name of grasshoppers, but which, in our version of the 

 Bible, and in other works in the English language, are called 

 locusts, have, from a period of very high antiquity, attracted 

 the attention of mankind by their extensive and lamentable 

 ravages. It should here be remarked, that in America the 

 name of locust is very improperly given to the Cicada of the 

 ancients, or the harvest-fly of Enghsh writers, some kinds of 

 which will be the subject of future remark in this treatise. 

 The name of locust will here be restricted to certain kinds 

 of grasshoppers; while the popularly named locust, which, 

 according to common belief, appears only once in seventeen 

 years, must drop this name and take the more correct one of 

 Cicada or harvest-fly. The very frequent misapplication of 

 names, by persons unacquainted with natural history, is one 

 of the greatest obstacles to the progress of science, and shows 

 how necessary it is that things should be called by their right 

 names, if the observations communicated respecting them are 

 to be of any service. Every intelligent farmer is capable of 

 becoming a good observer, and of making valuable discoveries 

 in natural history ; but if he be ignorant of the proper names 

 of the objects examined, or if he give to them names, which 

 previously have been applied by other persons to entirely 

 different objects, he will fail to make the result of his observa- 

 tions intelligible and useful to the community. 



The insects which I here call locusts, together with other 

 grasshoppers, earwigs, crickets, spectres or walking sticks, and 

 walking leaves, soothsayers, cockroaches, &c., belong to an 

 order called Orthoptera, literally straight wings; for their 



