Examples of Pupils' Work 165 



of a butterfly, but is dyed through and through the wings 

 and the body. 



11. The grasshoppers are a very timid family, and are 

 very sensitive to sound. The organs of hearing may be 

 situated either on the fore legs, as in the green grasshoppers, 

 Katydids, or at the base of the abdomen. 



12. The abdomen contains the vegetative organs. It is 

 composed of chitin, attached to the 



thorax. It has ten joints, which are 

 more or less movable, and sword-like 

 blades at the end called the ovipositor. 



13. The grasshoppers like to lay their 

 eggs in dry, hot places. In the fall you 

 may see hundreds of them in dry pas- 

 tures or along the roadside, making holes 

 in the ground to put their eggs in. The 

 female grasshopper has four sharp points 

 at the end of her body. She puts these 

 together to make one point, which she 

 thrusts into the ground, and then while 

 it is in the ground she spreads the points 

 and pushes the earth away; then again 

 she puts the points together and thrusts 

 the one point further down, and so by 

 pushing the point down and opening it 



over and over again, she makes a hole AK ,*' 



i i i j 11 i Abdomen, 



nearly as large as her body and lays her 



eggs in a case made of something like glue. Then she closes 

 up the hole, and the eggs lie all winter safe in the ground. 

 In the warm spring days the larvae hatch from the egg, 

 and creep out of the ground and begin to eat the first green 

 things they find. 



They are very small but shaped much like the parent, 

 only they have no wings. They molt and change their skin 

 several times. At first the little ones are all alike, but 

 after several changes of skin the larvae become pupae. 

 New coats grow on them, while the old ones get too small. 

 The old one splits down the back, and the young grass- 

 hopper steps out of it. He may have five new coats before 

 he is a grown grasshopper. The first and second new 

 coats have no wings on, the third you can see the coming 



