ORTHOPTERA : HABITS. 351 



If we shall find cause, in investigating the Hymeno- 

 ptera, and some other orders, to admire the admirable 

 displays of instinct which they afford us, we are com- 

 pe led to admit that the present order cannot bear any 

 thing like a comparison in the means of attracting our 

 attention. They, however, amply perform their work in 

 the great labours of the economy of nature, for they are 

 amongst the most voracious of the insect tribes. The cock- 

 roach, the mantis, and the locust, are too well known in this 

 respect to require more than the insertion of their names, 

 to bring before us the great and occasionally overwhelming 

 ravages which they commit. Their food, for the most part, 

 consists of vegetable substances, and, being less service- 

 able for the purposes of animalization than animal mat- 

 ters, it is necessary that a much greater quantity of food 

 should be taken, in proportion to the size of the insects, 

 than is consumed by the predaceous species which feed on 

 other insects, or upon carrion. Hence, from their great 

 size, the Orthoptera may be regarded as the most pre-emi- 

 nently herbivorous of the insect tribes, and their voracity is 

 excessive. We need only refer to the locust for a confirm- 

 ation of this statement, whilst the cockroach furnishes suffi- 

 cient proof of the in-door devastation which the insects of 

 this order are capable of performing. The internal anatomy 

 of this order is organized in a manner adapted to their herbi- 

 vorous qualities. The alimentary canal is greatly elongated, 

 and divided into several chambers or stomachs ; four of these 

 have been attributed to the mole-cricket, whose internal 

 structure has been long ago investigated, and more recently 

 by Dr. Kidd, of Oxford. From this circumstance it has been 

 supposed that the Orthoptera, analogous to the ruminating 

 quadrupeds, had the power of bringing back into the mouth 

 aliments which had already passed into the stomach ; but 

 according to M. Marcel de Serres, these chambers are not 

 in fact stomachs, but merely contain a salivary and biliary 



