The Life of the Grasshopper 



the best of all cages. We shall return to 

 this matter. For the moment, let us watch 

 the laying and make sure that the propitious 

 hour does not evade our vigilance. 



It is in the first week in June that my as- 

 siduous visits begin to show satisfactory 

 results. I surprise the mother standing mo- 

 tionless, with her ovipositor planted per- 

 pendicularly in the soil. For a long time she 

 remains stationed at the same point, heedless 

 of her indiscreet caller. At last she with- 

 draws her dibble, removes, more or less per- 

 functorily, the traces of the boring-hole, 

 takes a moment's rest, walks away and starts 

 again somewhere else, now here, now there, 

 all over the area at her disposal. Her be- 

 haviour, though her movements are slower, 

 is a repetition of what the Decticus has 

 shown us. Her egg-laying appears to me to 

 be ended within the twenty-four hours. For 

 greater certainty, I wait a couple of days 

 longer. 



I then dig up the earth in the pot. The 

 straw-coloured eggs are cylinders rounded at 

 both ends and measuring about one-ninth of 

 an inch in length. They are placed singly 

 in the soil, arranged vertically and grouped 

 in more or less numerous patches, which cor- 

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