CANNIBAL GRASSHOPPERS. 287 



rather a sharp head, large prominent eyes, ample wings, and 

 slender antennae as long as the body. This noble of his tribe 

 is not an unfrequent resorter to hedges and marshy places ; and, 

 though his green armour may easily escape observation, his loud 

 chirping can hardly fail to attract notice, especially amidst the 

 general silence of the feathered choir, in the songless months of 

 August and September. 



The above grandee of grasshoppers, as well as his more 

 insignificant brethren, is in the frequent habit of filling up 

 idle pauses between his music and his meals by a sort of 

 seeming rumination, which many have considered an actual 

 chewing of the cud ; whereas it is opined by others, that, 

 instead of ruminating, like Mistress Colly, the Sieur Gryllus 

 thinks of nothing but of licking, like Miss Grimalkin, his 

 superb whiskers (otherwise antennae) and his paws an operation 

 performed, by the way, with a tongue not at all dissimilar in 

 the shape to the unruly member boasted by ourselves. Whether 

 or not chewers of the cud, grasshoppers are, decidedly, crop- 

 pers of the grass ; but we are assured, on good authority, that 

 they now and then are nothing scrupulous in the variation of 

 such Brahminian fare, by taking, as a relish, some innocent 

 little insect of a kind differing from themselves ; still worse, 

 that when made fellow-prisoners (hard pressed by hunger or 

 confinement) they have been known to commit the cannibal 

 enormity of devouring one another an example being given 

 wherein one of the gentler sex (which, by the way, among in- 

 sects is usually the fiercer) was the doer of the deed. But, 

 worst of all ! horror of horrors ! we have it on excellent 

 evidence, how that a certain great green grasshopper (one of 

 the sort just described) on being bottled up together with his 

 own leg (accidentally detached), did make a hearty meal off 

 that late portion of himself. The reverend naturalist by whom 

 this unnatural act is recorded, performed himself, what in some 

 prejudiced opinions might appear a crowning feat of horror. 

 He followed the example of the Acridopkagi, and pronounced, 



