162 HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



end of the body is furnished with a long, double-bladed instru- 

 ment, technically called the ovipositor, or egg-layer. This 

 curious instrument, which is of course only found in the female 

 insect, is of very great comparative length, and is used for the 

 purpose of placing the eggs in a convenient spot. Pressed 

 closely together, the blades form an admirable boring instrument, 

 but when the required hole is made, the blades separate so as to 

 permit an egg to pass between them, and guide it to the exact 

 spot where it is to lie. The insect does not place many eggs in 

 one spot, but after depositing some ten or twelve eggs, she goes 

 off to another locality and repeats the process until her store is 

 exhausted. She thus contrives to spread her offspring rather 

 widely over the ground, and avoids the danger of losing the 

 entire brood by a single accident. 



When the young insects are first hatched, they are nearly 

 white, and of very small dimensions, being no larger than 

 ordinary gnats. At the left hand of the engraving may be seen 

 a small cavity, in which the young Grylli have just been hatched, 

 several of them being shown of their natural size. The well- 

 known Great Green Grasshopper, which is sometimes found in 

 our hedges and nut-trees, and so often frightens the ignorant, is 

 closely allied to the insect which has just been described, and 

 has very similar habits. 



The terrible Migratory Locust, which passes over the country 

 in such countless hosts, is also a partial burrower, laying its 

 eggs beneath the surface of the ground. It is stated by one 

 naturalist, that the eggs are placed in cells something like the 

 chambers of the mole cricket, the cell itself being about an inch 

 and a half deep, and the entrance to it being a nearly horizontal 

 tube of earth, coated with a kind of glutinous secretion. Some- 

 times the eggs themselves are enveloped with this glutinous 

 substance, and are stuck together in masses of determinate 

 shape. South America is peculiarly rich in these egg-masses, 

 many varieties of which may be seen in Mr. Waterton's collec- 

 tion. The young do not attain their wings for three years, and 

 during that period are called in Southern Africa by the popular 

 and expressive name of voet-gangers, or foot-goers. 



Befoee leaving the earth-burrowers, it is necessary to mention 

 the larva of the conmion May-fly, or Ephemera. Sometimes 



