CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 



LEAF AND TREE HOPPERS. GROTESQUE AND COMICAL 

 INSECTS. CUCKOO-SPIT. HARVEST FLY, LOCUST AND 

 SEVENTEEN- YEAR LOCUSTS. A METHUSELAH AMONG 

 .INSECTS. SEVENTEEN- YEAR LOCUSTS ATTEND A BALL 

 IN KENTUCKY. HOW THEY SAW HOLES IN THE TWIGS. 

 HOW THEY ARE PREYED UPON BY DRAGON-FLIES AND 

 WASPS. HARMLESS PLAYMATES. PUPA SKINS AS TOYS. 



TREE-HOPPERS AND LEAF-HOPPERS 



These insects (Figs. 260-264) have apparently 

 used up all their ingenuity in designing queer 

 fashions and forms. They indeed are an odd look- 

 ing tribe, and still more weird forms live in other 

 countries. They feed on the sap of trees and plants 

 and they never know when they have enough, at 

 least some people claim that these insects suck up 

 so much of the juices that the sap oozes out of their 

 bodies, often hiding them in a mass of lather or 

 foam. In England they are called frog-hoppers, 

 and on account of the foamy material are some- 

 times known over there as cuckoo-spit, a real pretty 

 name ( ?) , but I prefer leaf-hopper, don't you? 



I am not prepared to say of what this foam is 

 composed, or whether it is really sap of the tree 



280 



