INSECT LIFE 199 



I might have left my grasshopper on the reed stem, 

 expecting nothing new from it ; but, wishing to note 

 its colour and markings, and get an accurate notion 

 of its size it is short-horned, about an inch or rather 

 more in length, and brighter than the commonest 

 of our grasshoppers, Gomphocerus maculatus I 

 walked round the stem to observe from all points. 

 Now happened a thing, to me, extraordinary and 

 ludicrous : as I moved round the stem the grasshopper 

 slid round too. So round and round we slowly went. 

 The grasshopper would not have its back to me. It 

 moved slower than I did, but, if I stopped moving, 

 when I was looking at the back of the grasshopper 

 it always would work round till it faced me. The 

 tortoise would, in the end, be equal with the hare. 

 Possibly I might have over- walked, tired out, the 

 grasshopper, had I kept encircling it; but, feeling 

 sure the movements hung on my movements, that 

 it was intent to face me, I came to a standstill, and 

 plucked the reed; a moment or two later the grass- 

 hopper jerked itself away into the undergrowth. I 

 do not imagine this odd performance was peculiar 

 to my grasshopper. Here was no genius or insect 

 thinker, one grasshopper in a myriad. It must be 

 a habit of this species, perhaps of various species, 

 of grasshopper and locust, though I have never noticed 

 it in one or two other kinds I have watched in fields 

 and hedge-banks. 



But even so the thing is very curious. What 



