194 



SECOND REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



as the skin is split, the soft and white fore body swells and .^radually ex- 

 trudes more and more by a series of muscular contortions; the new head 



Fig. :')".— The molting operati(ii\ of a "grassliopper" (the lUocky raoiintain locust ■) ; a, pupa with skin 

 Just split on tlie back; ;6. the Imago extruding; c, the imago nearly out ; rf, tlie imago with wings ex- 

 panded; €, the imago with all parts perfect. 



slowly emerges from the old skin, which, with its empty eyes, is worked 

 back beneath, and the new feelers and the legs are being drawn from 

 their casings and the future wings from their sheaths. At the end of 

 six or seven minutes, our locust — no longer pupa and not yet imago — 

 looks as at b, the four front pupa legs being generally detached and the 

 insect hanging by the hooks of the hind feet, which were anchored 

 while yet it had that command over them which it has now lost. The 

 receding skin is transparent and loosened, especially from the extremi- 

 ties. In six or seven minutes more of arduous labor, of swelling and 

 contracting — with an occasional brief respite, the antennae and the four 

 front legs are freed, and the fulled and crimped wings extricated. 

 The soft front legs rapidly stiffen, and, holding to its support as well as 

 may be with these, the nascent locust employs whatever muscular force 

 it is capable of to draw out the end of the abdomen and its long legs, 

 as at c. This iii a few more minutes it finally does, and with gait as 

 unsteady as that of a new-dropped colt, it turns round and clambers up 

 the side of the shrunken, cast-off skin, and there rests while the wings 

 expand and every part of the body hardens and gains strength — the 

 crooked limbs straightening and the wings unfolding and expanding like 

 the petals of some pale flower. The front wings are at first rolled lon- 

 gitudinally to a point, and as they expand and unroll the hind wings, 

 which are gathered and tucked along the veins, at first curl over them. 

 In ten or fifteen minutes from the time of extrication these wings are 

 fully expanded and hang down like dampened rags (d). From this 

 point on, the broad hind wings begin to fold up like fans between the 

 narrower front ones, and in another ten minutes they have assumed the 

 normal attitude of rest. Meanwhile the pale colors which always be- 

 long to the insect while molting have been gradually giving way to the 

 natural tints, and at this stage our new-fledged locust presents an aspect 

 fresh and bright (e). If now we examine the cast-off skin, we shall 

 find every part entire with the exception of the rupture which originally 

 took place on the back; and it would puzzle one who had not wit- 

 nessed the operation to divine how the now stiff hind shanks of the ma- 



