The Life of the Grasshopper 



other animals that make use of the queer 

 apparatus. Now Octopuses and Millepedes 

 date back to the earliest ages. The Decticus, 

 another representative of the old world, 

 seems to tell us that what is a curious ex- 

 ception now might well have been a more or 

 less general rule originally, all the more so 

 as we shall come upon similar incidents in the 

 case of the other Grasshoppers. 



When the male has recovered from his 

 shock, he shakes the dust off himself and 

 once more begins his merry click-clack. For 

 the present let us leave him to his joys and 

 follow the mother that is to be, pacing along 

 solemnly with her burden, which is fastened 

 with a plug of jelly as transparent as glass. 



At intervals she draws herself up on her 

 shanks, curls into a ring and seizes her 

 opalescent load in her mandibles, nibbling it 

 calmly and squeezing it, but without tearing 

 the wrapper or shedding any of the contents. 

 Each time, she removes from the surface a 

 particle which she chews and then chews 

 again slowly, ending by swallowing it. 



This process is continued for twenty 

 minutes or so. Then the capsule, now 

 drained, is torn off in a single piece, all but 

 the jelly plug at the end. The huge, sticky 



224 





