The Green Grasshopper 



are highly carnivorous ; but not exclusively 

 so, like those of the Praying Mantis, who 

 refuses everything except game. The 

 butcher of the Cicadae is able to modify an 

 excessively heating diet with vegetable fare. 

 After meat and blood, sugary fruit-pulp; 

 sometimes even, for lack of anything better, 

 a little green stuff. 



Nevertheless, cannibalism is prevalent. 

 True, I never witness in my Grasshopper- 

 cages the savagery which is so common in 

 the Praying Mantis, who harpoons her 

 rivals and devours her lovers; but, if some 

 weakling succumb, the survivors hardly ever 

 fail to profit by his carcass as they would in 

 the case of any ordinary prey. With no 

 scarcity of provisions as an excuse, they feast 

 upon their defunct companion. For the rest, 

 all the sabre-bearing clan display, in varying 

 degrees, a propensity for filling their bellies 

 with their maimed comrades. 



In other respects, the Grasshoppers live 

 together very peacefully in my cages. No 

 serious strife ever takes place among them, 

 nothing beyond a little rivalry in the matter 

 of food. I hand in a piece of pear. A 

 Grasshopper alights on it at once. Jealously 

 she kicks away any one trying to bite at the 



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