98 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 



out being annoyed with them, as they unceremoniously fly 

 in your face, or alight on your arms, shoulders, and head. 

 This Grasshopper is about one and a half inches long, and 

 with expanded wings about three inches broad. Its wing- 

 covers are of a dusky brown color, and its wings black, 

 with a yellow band on the margin. 



But there are also found in the United States a great 

 number of many other species, which are generally distin- 

 guished from each other by the color of their wings. 



The largest and handsomest species of Grasshoppers are 

 found in South America, one of which I will incidentally 

 mention, as it is commonly found in private entomological 

 collections. This is the Grillus dux, an enormous insect, 

 its wings, when expanded, measuring a foot, and its wing- 

 covers beautifully colored red and blue, with black spots. 

 The wings themselves, when not expanded, are folded to- 

 gether like a fan, as is the case with all other species. 



But all Grasshoppers, whether handsome or not, are to 

 be considered and classed as noxious insects. They de- 

 vour every kind of vegetation, and were it not for Nature's 

 great law of compensation, so admirably carried out in our 

 own highly-favored country, this land would long since 

 have been laid waste by the ravages of these rapacious in- 

 sects. As it is, an abundance of majestic streams, lakes, 

 and ponds water our country from all sides, and by their 

 evaporatioj.^ afford sufficient rain for moistening the ground 

 and making it fruitful in the production of vegetables for 

 the support of man, as well as rendering it a fit abode for 

 numerous reptiles, such as snakes, turtles, lizards, salaman- 

 ders, frogs, and toads. Now these reptiles all feed more or 

 less on insects, and in preference on Grasshoppers, of which 

 they annually destroy an innumerable quantity. Hence 

 these hideous reptiles are the instruments made use of by a 

 kind Providence to rid us of a greater evil. We can only 

 form an estimate of the damaere that would be done to 



