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ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTAKIO. 



In studying these references and their teaching, we have to encounter great difficulties 

 arising from the fact that between the science of the ancients and that of our own day- 

 there is but little connection. Most of Solomon's wise sayings in natural history have 

 passed into oblivion. The reasons for the discrimination made by Moses in regard to food 

 are unknown. The treasury of Egyptian wisdom that he drew from is gone, and gene- 

 rally, we have to form conclusions from obscure meanings of obsolete terms, and from 

 statements made in highly figurative language. 



Moreover, we have to fit the information thus gathered to a fauna with which we 

 are imperfectly acquainted, and which exists under changed circumstances, and may 

 itself have undergone changes both by losses and accretions. 



Among the insects most frequently mentioned in the Scriptures, the locusts take a 

 leading place. They are sometimes called grasshoppers, and they are often associated 

 v with " the caterpillar and the palmer-worm." It is of this army I purpose now to treat. 



And first, for the better understanding of my subject, it may be well for us to take 

 a glance at the modern systematic arrangement in which locusts and grasshoppers appear. 



Both are found in that large order of insects named the Orthoptera from two Greek 

 ■words orthos, straight ; ptera, wings. They are straight-winged insects. 



By Westwood the Orthoptera were sub-divided into four groups which he named 



(respectively Cursoria, Graptoria, Ambulatoria and Saltatoria ; into 



Runners, like the Cockroach. 



Graspers, like the Mantis. 



Walkers, like the Spectre Insect. 



Leapers, like the Locust and Grasshopper. 



The locust and grasshopper then are leaping straight-winged insects. 



To set before you the points of distinction between them, that have come to be 

 ^recognized by Naturalists in our own day, L cannot do better than make two brief quota- 

 tions from Harris, whose work on " Insects injurious to Vegetation " is one of our 

 ^Entomological classics. He says : — 



" Grasshoppers, properly so called, * * are those jumping orthopterous insects, 

 "which have four joints to all their feet, long brietle-formed antennae, and in which 

 the females are provided with a piercer, flattened at the sides, and somewhat resembling 



Fig. 18. A Grasshopper or Locust. 



a sword or cimeter in shape. The wing-covers slope downwards at the sides of the body 

 and overlap only a little on the top of the back near the thorax. This overlapping 

 portion, which forms a long triangle, is traversed, in the males, by strong projecting veins, 

 between which in many of them, are membranous spaces as transparent as glass. The 

 sounds emitted by the males, and varying according to species, are produced by the 

 friction of these overlapping portions together." Ins. inj. to Veg., p. 155. 



Again he says : — 



"The various insects included under the name of locusts (Fig. 18) nearly all agree in 

 'having their wing covers rather long and narrow, and placed obliquely along the sides of 

 the body, meeting, and even overlapping for a short distance, at their upper edges, which 

 together form a ridge on the back like a sloping roof. Their antenna? are much shorter 



