ORDER III. STRAIGHT-WINGED INSECTS. 99 



vegetation were it not for these reptiles, by comparing our 

 country with the immense prairie lands of the East of Eu- 

 rope, and several parts of Asia and Africa, which are des- 

 titute of water and trees, and where for hundreds of miles 

 neither bird nor reptile can live, but where myriads of 

 Grasshoppers dwell in the height of their glory, and nothing 

 green is spared their rapacious jaws. 



It is a matter of congratulation, therefore, and an evi- 

 dence of the wisdom of that gracious rule of compensation, 

 that our gardens, fields, meadows, and woods are peopled 

 with snakes and other reptiles which feed mostly upon these 

 destructive insects. When, therefore, we look with terror 

 on the crawling serpents and the croaking frogs, and are 

 tempted to wish their number less, it is because in their 

 hideous forms we lose sight of their benevolent use ; we for- 

 get the inexorable decree that has fixed the circle of depend- 

 ence as the order of all created things ; we forget that all 

 must die that others may live ; we think not of the hosts 

 of birds, such as Heron, Bittern, etc., who feed mostly upon 

 reptiles, and thereby render a superabundance of the latter 

 impossible; we consider not that these very birds must 

 yield themselves up as food for man, and last of all, that 

 man in his turn must die and also be devoured by insects. 

 And still more we forget, what the open page of Nature 

 clearly shows us, that the moment we begin to live we also 

 begin to die, and that even while we live in all the pride 

 of health we are the constant, daily food of the most de- 

 spised insects. 



But the Grasshopper, although neither large nor terrific 

 in its appearance, has a curious and a wonderful history; 

 perhaps more so than any other insect. It is the same in- 

 sect whose mode of life and whose ravages have excited the 

 curiosity of Naturalists as well as Historians in all ages. 

 It is armed with two pair of veiy strong jaws, by which it 

 can both lacerate and grind its food, and although a single 



