294 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



there might not be enough fruit and vegetables for Human Babies 

 to live upon. 



But what cares Mrs. Grasshopper for Human Babies? Her 

 only concern is to find a store. room where her own little ones shall 

 be safe from the snows and blasts of winter. 



At last she finds what pleases her. For several moments she 

 investigates a dead reed about one inch thick and a little more 

 than a foot tall. With her strong mandibles she pricks the bark 

 to learn whether it is sufficiently strong and thick to keep out 

 other prying insects, and the pith inside the bark warm and soft 

 enough to shelter her babies imtil springtime. 



Having climbed up the reed an inch from the ground, Mrs. 

 Gray Grasshopper proceeds to dig with her homy tail a small, 

 funnel - shaped hole in which she deposits twelve or fourteen 

 little eggs. Then covering the hole with a kind of gluey sub- 

 stance, she measures another space with her mandibles and moves 

 on. But into the first little nest whose gluey door the sun has not 

 yet hardened, comes gay Mrs. Gant ready to lay her own eggs. 



Unconscious of what is taking place behind her, Mrs. Gray 

 Grasshopper patiently climbs on, fashioning and filling dozens 

 of little cradles which are placed one above the other, in a kind of 

 spiral line. 



Mr. Faber, the great French Naturalist, tells us that, during 

 her egg-laying process, Mrs. Gray Grasshopper always keeps her 

 back to the sun, therefore she moves with the earth as we move 

 from the sun! Thus, the mystery of the spiral line running from 

 base to top of the Grasshopper's lodging house, is solved! 



Now that dusky shadows are covering the yellow hillside, we 

 wonder what is to become of Mrs. Gray Grasshopper. Where is 

 she to spend the night? She answers the question by climbing 

 to the very tip top of the apartment house and drawing her wings 

 and legs very close to her weary body. And, with the tiny eyes 

 in the center of her head and also with the other pair of great, 

 compotind eyes in her forehead, she stare? vacantly at the milky 

 shadows a new moon casts upon the land. The odd little ears 

 at the base of her wings are open to the notes of tired musicians. 



Quite distinctly now, Mrs. Gray Grasshopper hears the tolling 

 of tiny, far-off silver bells. Can it be that a Human Boy has 

 slain another Jerry Bluejay? 



