BOOK XI. XXXIV. loo-xxxv. 103 



it is in the mouth and serves as a tongue. With 

 some these stings are blunt, and do not serve for 

 pricking but for suction — for instance with a sort of 

 fly, in which the tongue is evidently a tube ; and this 

 sort of insect have no teeth. Others, for instance 

 butterflies, have useless little horns projecting in 

 front of their eyes. Some insects, for instance the 

 centipede, have no wings. 



XXXV. Insects that have feet can move sideways. ■ 

 Ofsome, forinstance locusts,the hind feet are longer 

 and curve outward. 



Locusts in the autumn season give birth to clusters 

 of eggs, by lowering the tube of the prickle to the 

 earth. The eggs last for the winter, but in the ensuing 

 year at the end of spring send out small insects, that 

 are blackish and have no legs, and crawl with their 

 wing-feathers. Consequently spring rains kill the 

 eggs, whereas in a dry spring there are larger broods. 

 Others record that they have two breeding seasons 

 and two seasons when they die ofF — bearing at the 

 rise of the Pleiads and then dying at the rise of the 

 Dogstar, others being born in their place ; some say 

 that this second brood is born at the setting of 

 Arcturus. It is certain that the mothers die when 

 they have given birth to a brood, a maggot 

 immediately forming inside them in the region of 

 the throat that chokes them. The males die at the 

 same time. And although dying for such a trifling 

 reason a single locust when it Hkes can kill a snake 

 by gripping its throat with its teeth. They are born 

 only in places with chinks in them. There are said 

 to be locusts in India thi-ee feet lonar, with leffs 

 and thighs that when they have been dried can be 

 used as saws. They also have another way of dying : 



495 



