The Life of the Grasshopper 



some little while. The female is armed at 

 the tip of the abdomen — as, in varying de- 

 grees, are the other Locust mothers — with 

 four short excavators, arranged in pairs and 

 shaped like a hooked finger-nail. In the 

 upper pair, which are larger, these hooks are 

 turned upwards; in the lower and smaller 

 pair, they are turned downwards. They 

 form a sort of claw and are hard and black 

 at the point; also they are scooped out 

 slightly, like a spoon, on their concave sur- 

 face. These are the pick-axes, the trepans, 

 the boring-tools. 



The mother bends her long abdomen per- 

 pendicularly to the line of the body. With 

 her four trepans she bites into the soil, lift- 

 ing the dry earth a little ; then, with a very 

 slow movement, she pushes down her ab- 

 domen, making no apparent effort, display- 

 ing no excitement that would reveal the dif- 

 ficulty of the task. 



The insect is motionless and contemplative. 

 The boring-implement could not work more 

 quietly if it were sinking into soft mould. It 

 might all be happening in butter; and yet 

 what the bore traverses is caked, unyielding 

 earth. 



It would be interesting, if it were only pos- 



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