LOCUSTS AND GRASSHOPPERS (ACRIDIIDM). 101 



the process of extrication is complete. Pale and colour- 

 less when first having drawn itself out of this skin, the 

 full-born larva is nevertheless at once capable of walking 

 firmly on its legs, and even hops with agility, and an 

 hour seldom elapses after the moult takes place ere its 

 natural dark grey colouring is acquired. 



However thin and delicate this pellicle discarded by 

 the little animal on issuing from the egg may be, it 

 doubtless affords much protection in the struggles of 

 birth, and Riley points out the interesting fact that while, 

 as we have just seen, it is shed within a very few minutes 

 of the time when the animal reaches the free air, it is 

 rarely shed if, from some cause or other, there is failure 

 to get out of the soil, even though the young may be 

 striving for days to effect an escape. 



Post -embryonic Development. 



Let us trace a migratory locust, Schistocerca peregrina, 

 through its post-embryonic development ; following 

 Brongniart. Immediately on leaving the egg the young 

 locust changes its skin, and is then of a green colour, 

 but quickly becomes brown, and in twelve hours is 

 black. Already at this early age the gregarious habit 

 proclaims itself. In six days the individual experiences 

 a second moult, after which it is black, mixed with 



