3 8o 



ANIMAL LIFE-HISTORIES 



means of the specialized fore-legs (see vol. iii, p. 222). The 

 excavations made in the interests of the young include an incu- 

 bating chamber, and also a " nursery ", in which the newly-hatched 

 progeny can disport themselves (fig. 900). Our knowledge of 

 these domestic details begins with old Gilbert White, who says 

 (in the Natural History of Selborne): ". ... A gardener at a 

 house where I was on a visit, happening to be mowing, on the 

 6th of May, by the side of a canal, his scythe struck too deep, 

 pared off a large piece of turf, and laid open to view a curious 

 scene of domestic economy. There were many caverns and 



Fig. 899. A Green Grasshopper (Decticus verrncivorus] laying her Eggs. Note the large ovipositor 



winding passages leading to a kind of chamber, neatly smoothed 

 and rounded, and about the size of a moderate snuff-box. Within 

 this secret nursery were deposited near a hundred eggs of a 

 dirty yellow colour, but too lately excluded to contain any rudi- 

 ments of young, being full of a viscous substance. The eggs lay 

 but shallow, and within the influence of the sun, just under a little 

 heap of fresh-moved mould like that which is raised by ants." 



BUGS (HEMIPTERA). The members of this order emerge from 

 the egg in a form which is usually not very dissimilar from the 

 adult, though there is a good deal of variation in this matter. 

 In Tree-Bugs (Cicadid<z\ for instance, there is a considerable 

 difference. Some account has already been given of the life- 

 history of one of the most remarkable members of the family, 

 the Seventeen-year Cicada (Cicada sepfendecim), which remains 



