18 The South Aastralian Naturalist. ^^ 



crippled by having one of his front legs bitten off at the knee 

 joint. As they use the front legs particularly for clinging to 

 their support when casting the skin, he was not a success; the 

 wings were spoilt. Being unable to cling to the support pro- 

 perly, he fell down behind a piece of bark before the wings were 

 finished expanding. 



The pink locusts are strong, thick-set creatures. The head 

 is very large, the hoppers are thick and strongly spined, but 

 the antennae are not so long as in other species. They had 

 finished feeding when the brown one came out to feed. She 

 selected an open pea-pod with peas in it, and about three inches 

 from a large pink locust, which sat quietly by a piece of bark. 

 He soon showed resentment at her feeding by patting the sand 

 with his feet. The one at the pea-pod was too busy with her 

 meal to pay any attention; he then walked steadily up to the 

 unsuspecting one, raised his front feet and brought them down 

 heavily on her head. Taken by surprise, she ran off, and he 

 returned to his place by the bark. After a few minutes the 

 brown locust, having recovered from her fright, returned to 

 finish her meal. The pink locust again patted the sand with his 

 feet to show his displeasure, but she ignored him. Again he 

 walked up to where she was feeding. This time, though feed- 

 ing greedily, she was on the alert, and as he reared up to strike 

 she did likewise, at the same time unfurling her wings and 

 holding them over her back. She was the quicker, and he got 

 time to recover from his surprise she reared up again, at the 

 same time making the rustling noise. She was too pugnacious 

 for his liking, so he retired to his piece of bark. It was most 

 amusing to see him patting the sand, turning and moving about 

 in a manner to show plainly that he was extremely angry. 

 However, he decided that it would not be wise to have another 

 boxing bout with such a fury. She went on with her meal, and 

 his ill-will did not worry her. 



I put a browTi tree locust, which was jiTst ready to make its 

 final moult, into a small glass jar ; the glass was, of course, too 

 smooth for the locust to cling to. By the next morning she 

 had cast her skin, and the wings had dried like bits of crumpled 

 chiffon, quite useless for flight. As the ivings dry, so they 

 remain. Insects seem to be well aware of this ; locusts cling to 

 their support head upwards, and keep well away from anything 

 that might interfere with the expansion of the wings. The 

 large, short-winged mantis cling to their support with the 

 two hind feet, the head pointing downwards. They have no 

 long wings to worry about, their wings being too short for 

 flight. The skin breaks on the back of the thorax, and the 



