The Life of the Grasshopper 



in the humble covering of an unsightly 

 Acridian incapable of flight. 



The Italian Locust begins by enclosing her 

 eggs in a keg and then, when on the point 

 of sealing her receptacle, thinks better of it: 

 something essential, the ascending-shaft, is 

 lacking. At the upper end, at the point 

 where it seems as if the barrel ought to finish 

 and close, a sudden compression changes the 

 course of the work, which is prolonged by 

 the regulation foamy appendage. In this 

 way, two storeys are obtained, clearly de- 

 fined on the outside by a deep groove. The 

 lower, which is oval in shape, contains the 

 packet of eggs; the upper, tapering into the 

 tail of a comma, consists of nothing but 

 foam. The two communicate by an opening 

 that remains more or less free. 



The Locust's art is not confined to these 

 specimens of architecture. She knows how 

 to construct other strong-boxes for her eggs; 

 she can protect them with all kinds of edifices, 

 some simple, others more ingenious, but all 

 worthy of our attention. Those with which 

 we are familiar are very few compared with 

 those of which we are ignorant. No matter : 

 what the cages reveal to us is sufficient to 

 enlighten us as to the general form. It re- 



