The Locusts: their Eggs 



lower end and cut square at the upper end. 

 Its dimensions are an inch to an inch and a 

 half in length by a fifth of an inch in width. 

 The eggs, about twenty in number, are 

 orange-red, adorned with a pretty pattern 

 of tiny spots. The frothy matrix in which 

 they are contained is small in quantity; but 

 above them there is a long column of very 

 fine, transparent and porous foam. 



The Blue-winged Locust (CEdipoda coeru- 

 lescens) arranges her eggs in a sort of fat 

 inverted comma. The lower portion con- 

 tains the eggs in its gourd-shaped pocket. 

 They also are few in number, some thirty 

 at most, of a fairly bright orange-red, but 

 unspotted. This receptable is crowned with 

 a curved, conical cap of foam. 



The lover of the mountain-tops, the Pedes- 

 trian Locust, adopts the same method as the 

 Blue-winged Locust, the denizen of the 

 plains. Her sheath too is shaped like a 

 comma with the point turned upwards. The 

 eggs, numbering about two dozen, are dark- 

 russet and are strikingly ornamented with a 

 delicate lacework of inwrought spots. You 

 are quite surprised when you pass the mag- 

 nifying-glass over this unexpected elegance. 

 Beauty leaves its impress everywhere, even 

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