20 HISTORY OF 



convenient place, beneath some thorn or thistle, 

 that may protect it from an accidental shower. 

 The same laborious writhings and workings, heav- 

 ings and palpitations, which we have remarked in 

 every other insect upon an approaching change, 

 are exhibited in this. It swells up its head and 

 neck ; it then seems to draw them in again ; and 

 thus alternately, for some time, it exerts its 

 powers to get free. At length, the skin covering 

 the head and breast is seen dividing above the 

 neck ; the head is seen issuing out first from the 

 bursting skin ; the efforts still continuing, the 

 other parts follow successively ; so that the little 

 animal, with its long feelers, legs and all, works 

 its way from the old skin, that remains fixed to 

 the thistle or the thorn. It is indeed inconceiv- 

 able how the insect can thus extricate itself from 

 so exact a sheath as that which covered every 

 part of its body. 



The grasshopper, thus disengaged from its outer 

 skin, appears in its perfect form ; but then so fee- 

 ble, and its body so soft and tender, that it may 

 be moulded like wax. It is no longer of that 

 obscure colour which it exhibited before, but a 

 greenish-white, which becomes more vivid as the 

 moisture on the surface is dried away. Still, how- 

 ever, the animal continues to show no signs of 

 life, but appears quite spent and fatigued with its 

 labour for more than an hour together. During 

 this time, the body is drying, and the wings un- 

 folding to their greatest expansion j and the curi- 

 ous observer will perceive them, fold after fold, 

 opening to the sun, till at last they become longer 



