CRABS AND INSECTS. 



and mold-spots of various colors are also mimicked in 

 some, so that the insect resembles a dried leaf well de- 

 cayed. The eggs might even be taken for deeply-ribbed 

 seeds. 



Grasshoppers (Acrydit). The grasshoppers (Fig. 

 142) have a compressed body, short antennae, and hind- 

 legs adapted for leaping. Their noise, 

 which is often deafening, is made by rub- 

 bing the thighs (Fig. 143) against the fore- 



FIG. 142. Grasshopper. 



FIG. 141. Phyl- 

 lium siccifoli- 

 um, feeds on 

 leaves, and 

 mimics fresh 

 leaves. 



FIG. 143. Leg of a grasshopper, magnified, showing 

 ridge of fine teeth on the inside of the leg, marked a, 

 by which the insect rasps the wing; b, c, different 

 views of ridge of fine teeth, highly magnified. 



wings. Their eggs are deposited, 50 to 100 at a time, in 

 a cocoon-shaped mass, in the ground, though the female 

 has no produced ovipositor. The organs of hearing are 

 at the base of the abdomen. 



NOTE. Some species migrate in such vast numbers that they 

 have been known to darken the sun. Their bodies, once washed 

 ashore on the African coast, formed a wall fifty miles long and three 

 or four feet in height. Jaegar passed through a swarm in Russia 

 400 miles long and two feet deep. They threatened a famine, and 

 30,000 soldiers, armed with shovels, were sent out to reduce their 

 numbers. In 1478 30,000 persons starved to death in Russia, the 

 result of their raids. 



