The Life of the Grasshopper 



vence : a slim, swaying thing of so fantastic 

 an appearance that uninitiated fingers dare 

 not lay hold of it. The children of my 

 neighbourhood, impressed by its startling 

 shape, call it " the Devilkin." In their im- 

 aginations, the queer little creature savours 

 of witchcraft. One comes across it, though 

 always sparsely, in spring, up to May; in 

 autumn ; and sometimes in winter, if the sun 

 be strong. The tough grasses of the waste- 

 lands, the stunted bushes which catch the sun 

 and are sheltered from the wind by a few 

 heaps of stones are the chilly Empusa's 

 favourite abode. 



Let us give a rapid sketch of her. The 

 abdomen, which always curls up so as to join 

 the back, spreads paddlewise and twists into 

 a crook. Pointed scales, a sort of foliaceous 

 expansions arranged in three rows, cover the 

 lower surface, which becomes the upper sur- 

 face because of the crook aforesaid. The 

 scaly crook is propped on four long, thin 

 stilts, on four legs armed with knee-pieces, 

 that is to say, carrying at the end of the thigh, 

 where it joins the shin, a curved, projecting 

 blade not unlike that of a cleaver. 



Above this base, this four-legged stool, 

 rises, at a sudden angle, the stiff corselet, 

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