HUMOURS OF INSECT LIFE 



in trepidation, it would seem. His eyes are set further 

 in front than hers, and his aspect is not so particularly 

 venerable. He gently lifts his legs, and utters a faint 

 chirrup, calculated, perhaps, to assure her of his ad- 

 miration ; but she makes no response. Now he crawls 

 still nearer, takes the grass-blade which she is daintily 

 nibbling in his front claws, and holds it obligingly for 

 her in a better position. But she gnaws away, and he, 

 preoccupied with her charms, fails to notice that the 

 grass-blade is gradually disappearing close to his claws, 

 till with a sharp nip she reminds him that her business 

 is eating, and causes him to relinquish hastily his hold. 

 His next attitude is absurdly funny. While he grasps 

 the surrounding stalks with his four hind-feet, his front- 

 claws seem to have nothing to do. He clasps them in 

 an unintentional attitude of supplication so comical 

 that I laugh aloud ; and alas ! the grasshopper's wooing 

 is indefinitely postponed. A grasshopper, while nib- 

 bling a green blade, holds it in such a position that her 

 jaws cut through it edgewise, and in a curve of which 

 the lower extremity is nearer to her body than the 

 point at which she commences to gnaw. 



All this I have seen as I crouched in the grass. As I 

 walk by the fence I notice a dragon-fly, belonging to the 

 largest of our British species, resting on a leaf. The 

 body is rich olive-brown in colour, with a delicate bloom, 

 like that of the sloes in the hedgerow, at the lower end 



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