4 8 4 



THE GREAT GREEN GRASSHOPPER. 



On they came like a snow-storm, flying slow and steady, about a hundred yards from 

 the ground. I stood looking at them until the air was darkened with their masses, 

 while the plain on which we stood became densely covered with them. Far as my eye 

 could reach, east, west, north, and south, they stretched in one unbroken cloud ; and 

 more than an- hour elapsed before their devastating legions had swept by. . . . 



Locusts afford fattening and wholesome food to man, birds, and all sorts of beasts ; 

 cows and horses, lions, jackals, hyaenas, antelopes, elephants, etc. devour them. We met 

 a party of Batlapis carrying heavy burdens of them on their backs. Our hungry dogs 

 made a fine feast on them. The cold frosty night had rendered them unable to take 

 wing until the sun should restore their powers. As it was difficult to obtain sufficient 

 food for my dogs, I and Isaac took a large blanket which we spread under a bush, 

 whose branches were bent to the ground with the mass of Locusts which covered it, and 

 having shaken the branches, in an instant I had more Locusts than I could carry on my 

 back ; these we roasted for ourselves and our dogs." 



Our common English grasshoppers belong to the true Locusts. 



EYED PTEROCHROZA.-PterocAroza ocellata. 



Now and then is found in our fields a very large locust-like insect, of a beautiful 

 grass-green hue, and having at the end of its tail a long, flat-bladed instrument called an 

 ovipositor, and used for the purpose of boring holes in the earth and placing its eggs 

 below the surface. This is the GREAT GREEN GRASSHOPPER (Phasgonura, or ' Acrida 

 viridissima), which unfortunately loses its soft light green color soon after death, and 

 as it dries becomes a dirty yellowish brown. It is a very fine insect, often measuring 

 two inches in length and three inches and a half over the expanded wings. It seems to 

 be rather capricious in its appearances, in some years being quite plentiful, and in 

 others hardly to be seen. The jaws of this insect are wonderfully powerful, and its 

 captor will act wisely to keep his finger out of their reach. The internal structure of 

 this grasshopper is extremely interesting, and on account of its large dimensions are 

 easily studied. The gizzard is especially worthy of notice. 



THE singular insect which is represented in the accompanying illustration is one of 

 those beings in which are found a strong resemblance to others parts of creation. In this 

 insect, we have an example of a member of the animal kingdom reproducing with 



