LOCUSTS 163 



any special talent which the mother can exercise at will. It 

 is due to mechanism. It happens of itself. In the same way 

 the Locusts have no industry of their own, specially devised 

 for laying eggs in a keg of froth. The foam is produced with 

 the eggs, and the arrangement of eggs at the bottom and centre, 

 and froth on the outside and the top, is purely mechanical. 



There are many Locusts whose egg-cases have to last through 

 the winter, since they do not open until the fine weather 

 returns. Though the soil is loose and dusty at first, it becomes 

 caked together by the winter rains. Supposing that the hatch- 

 ing takes place a couple of inches below the surface, how is this 

 crust, this hard ceiling, to be broken ? How is the larva to 

 come up from below ? The mother's unconscious art has 

 arranged for that. 



The young Locust finds above him, when he comes out of 

 the egg, not rough sand and hardened earth, but a straight 

 tunnel, with solid walls that keep all difficulties away. This 

 ascending-shaft is full of foam, which the larva can easily pene- 

 trate, and which will bring him quite close to the surface. 

 Here only a finger 's-breadth of serious work remains to be done. 



The greater part of the journey, therefore, is accomplished 

 without effort. Though the Locust's building is done quite 

 mechanically, without the least intelligence, it is certainly 

 singularly well devised. 



The little creature lias now to complete his deliverance. 

 On leaving his shell he is of a whitish colour, clouded with light 

 red. His progress is made by worm-like movements ; and, 

 so that it may be as easy as possible, he is hatched, like the 

 young Grasshopper, in a temporary jacket which keeps his 

 antennae and legs closely fixed to his body. Like the White- 

 faced Decticus he keeps his boring-tool at his neck. Here 

 there is a kind of tumour that swells and subsides alternately, 

 and strikes the obstacle before it as regularly as a piston. 

 When I see this soft bladder trying to overcome the hardness 

 of the earth I come to the unhappy creature's aid, and damp 

 the layer of soil. 



