GRASSHOPPER 



2577 



GRASSHOPPER 



animals. Among the principal pasture grasses 

 are red-top, blue grass, bent grass, blue stem 

 and Bermuda grass; the hay grasses include 

 red-top, blue grass, timothy, orchard grass, 

 meadow foxtail, tall oat grass and rye grass. 

 Cereal grasses, represented chiefly by wheat, 

 corn, oats, rye, barley and rice, provide man 

 with the most important part of his vegetable 

 food. 



Grasses are flowering plants which produce 

 flowers extremely complex in structure, and 

 characterized by richness and variety of color- 

 ing. All grasses have fibrous roots and nearly 

 all have hollow, jointed stems. According to 

 arrangement on the stem, the leaves are said 

 to be two-ranked; that is, each alternate leaf 

 grows on the opposite side of the stem from 

 the one before it, which brings the third one 

 directly above the first and the fourth above 

 the second. The various species grow in every 

 variety of situation in dry, barren places, 

 in moist, rich soil, in marshes, in stagnant 

 water, on inland prairies and along the sea- 

 coast. B.M.W. 



Related Subjects. The reader who wishes to 

 gain an appreciation of the economic importance 

 of the various members of the grass family is 

 referred to the following articles in these vol- 

 umes : 



Bamboo 

 Barley 

 Blue Grass 

 Broom Corn 

 Cane 

 Corn 



Couch Grass 

 Esparto 

 Foxtail Grass 

 Gama Grass 

 Kafir Corn 

 Maize 



Millet 



Oats 



Popcorn 



Rice 



Rye 



Sorghum 



Sudan Grass 



Sugar Cane 



Sweet Flag 



Timothy 



Wheat 



Wild Barley 



GRASS 'HOPPER, the popular name for two 

 families of straight-winged, leaping insects, 

 which hop through fields or along dusty road- 

 sides the summer long. One species is described 

 by Leigh Hunt, in To the Grasshopper and the 

 Cricket, as 



Green little vaulter in the sunny grass, 

 Catching your heart up at the feel of June, 

 Sole voice that's heard amidst the lazy noon, 

 When even the bees lag at the summoning brass. 



All are characterized by long, slender legs with 

 large thighs adapted for jumping; by mouth- 

 parts fitted for biting; and by large, delicate 

 hind wings with strong powers of flight, pro- 

 tected, when at rest, by thickened, tough fore 

 wings which extend far beyond the end of the 

 abdomen. The males produce a chirping sound 

 by rubbing their wing covers together, the 

 162 



sound varying according to the species. The 

 chief differences are in coloring, habits and 

 length of feelers, or horns. 



Strange as it may seem, grasshoppers, with 

 which should be included locusts, are used as 

 food in some parts of the world. In desert and 

 semiarid sections of Arabia and in the North 

 African plains near the Red Sea they are eaten 



PARTS OF THE GRASSHOPPER 



by some tribes of native Arabs. The usual 

 method of 'preparing them is by drying the 

 insects thoroughly, then crushing the bodies 

 in a mortar and making them into meal by 

 adding water and sometimes a little syrup. 

 The Indians of North America, particularly on 

 the Great Plains, were once known to roast 

 grasshoppers, and thus prepare them as a 

 food delicacy. 



Life History. ^Grasshoppers lay their eggs 

 beneath the surface of the ground, commenc- 

 ing late in July. The female pierces a hole 

 in the ground with her sharply-pointed abdo- 

 men and lays from twenty-four to thirty-six 

 eggs, each one-fifth of an inch long. These 

 are covered with a varnishlike film, and the 

 mass then looks like a curved pod. Two of 

 these pods are usually deposited by each fe- 

 male during her life. In the spring the eggs 

 hatch into wingless creatures. Within eighty 

 or ninety days, after shedding their skins, or 

 molting, four or five times, the young are full- 

 grown, with completely developed wings. In 

 another week the insects mate, lay the eggs 

 for another generation, and within three or four 

 weeks shrivel up, wither and die. 



Short-horned Grasshopper, or True Locust. 

 Although commonly known as a grasshopper, 

 this destructive species is a true locust; those 

 insects which in America are called locusts are 

 really cicadas (which see). To this species 

 belong the Rocky Mountain grasshopper, which 



