ORDER IlI.-——-STRAIGHT-WINGED INSECTS. 99 
vegetation were it not for these reptiles, by comparing our 
country with the immense prairie lands of the East of Eu- 
rope, and several parts of Asia and Africa, which are des- 
titute of water and trees, and where for hundreds of miles 
neither bird nor reptile can live, but where myriads of 
Grasshoppers dwell in the height of their glory, and nothing 
green is spared their rapacious jaws. 
It is a matter of congratulation, therefore, and an evi- 
dence of the wisdom of that gracious rule of compensation, 
that our gardens, fields, meadows, and woods are peopled 
with snakes and other reptiles which feed mostly upon these 
destructive insects. When, therefore, we look with terror 
on the crawling serpents and the croaking frogs, and are 
tempted to wish their number less, it is because in their 
hideous forms we lose sight of their benevolent use; we for- 
get the inexorable decree that has fixed the circle of depend- 
ence as the order of all created things; we forget that all 
must die that others may live; we think not of the hosts 
of birds, such as Heron, Bittern, etc., who feed mostly upon 
reptiles, and thereby render a superabundance of the latter 
impossible; we consider not that these very birds must 
yield themselves up as food for man, and last of all, that 
man in his turn must die and also be devoured by insects. 
And still more we forget, what the open page of Nature 
clearly shows us, that the moment we begin to live we also 
begin to die, and that even while we live in all the pride 
of health we are the constant, daily food of the most de- 
spised insects. 
But the Grasshopper, although neither large nor terrific 
in its appearance, has a curious and a wonderful history ; 
perhaps more so than any other insect. It is the same in- 
sect whose mode of life and whose ravages have excited the 
curiosity of Naturalists as well as Historians in all ages. 
It is armed with two pair of very strong jaws, by which it 
can both lacerate and grind its food, and although a single 
