The Life of the Grasshopper 



eight months. The former, save for rare 

 exceptions in a season of drought, lies under 

 a thin layer of dry, loose, unresisting earth; 

 the latter, on the contrary, finds itself in soil 

 which has been caked together by the per- 

 sistent rains of autumn and winter and which 

 therefore presents serious difficulties. More- 

 over, the Cricket is shorter and stouter, less 

 long-shanked than the Decticus. These 

 would appear to be the reasons for the dif- 

 ference between the two insects in respect of 

 their methods of emerging. The Decticus, 

 born lower down, under a close-packed 

 layer, needs a climbing-costume with which 

 the Cricket is able to dispense, being less 

 hampered and nearer to the surface and hav- 

 ing only a powdery layer of earth to pass 

 through. 



Then what is the object of the tights 

 which the Cricket flings aside as soon as he 

 is out of the egg? I will answer this quest- 

 ion with another: what is the object of the 

 two white stumps, the two pale-coloured 

 embryo wings carried by the Cricket under 

 his wing-cases, which are turned into a great 

 mechanism of sound? They are so insig- 

 nificant, so feeble that the insect certainly 

 makes no use of them, any more than the 



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