The Life of the Grasshopper 



pigmy who has to wander from thicket to 

 thicket at mating-time. He has a well- 

 developed pair, more than sufficient for his 

 flight, the greatest range of which hardly 

 amounts to four or five of our paces. The 

 little fellow is exceedingly sober in his appe- 

 tites. On rare occasions, in my cages, I 

 catch him eating a lean Locust, an insig- 

 nificant, perfectly harmless creature. This 

 means that he knows nothing of the spectral 

 attitude, which is of no use to an unambi- 

 tious hunter of his kind. 



On the other hand, the advantage of the 

 wings to the female is not very obvious, for 

 she is inordinately stout at the time when her 

 eggs ripen. She climbs, she runs; but, 

 weighed down by her corpulence, she never 

 flies. Then what is the object of wings, of 

 wings, too, which are seldom matched for 

 breadth? 



The question becomes more significant if 

 we consider the Grey Mantis {Ameles de- 

 color), who is closely akin to the Praying 

 Mantis. The male is winged and is even 

 pretty quick at flying. The female, who 

 drags a great belly full of eggs, reduces her 

 wings to stumps and, like the cheese-makers 

 of Auvergne and Savoy, wears a short-tailed 



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