CHAPTER III. 



OETHOPTEEA. 



Earwigs. — Cockroaches. — Mantes, or Soothsayers. — Walking-Leaves. 

 — Walking-Sticks, or Spectres. — Mole-Cricket. — Field Crickets. — 

 Climbing Cricket. — Wingless Cricket. — Grasshoppers. — Katy-did. — 

 Locusts. > ■ • - 



THE destructive insects popularly known in this country 

 by the name of grasshoppers, but which in our version 

 of the Bible, and in other works in the English language, are 

 called locusts, have, from a period of very high antiquity, 

 attracted the attention of mankind by their extensive and 

 lamentable ravages. It should here be remarked,^, that in 

 America the name of locust is very improperly given to the 

 Cicada of the ancients, or the harvest-fly of English writers, 

 some kinds of which will be the subject of future remark in 

 this treatise. The name of locust will here be restricted to 

 certain kinds of grasshoppers ; while the popularly named 

 locust, which, according to common belief, appears only once 

 in seventeen years, must drop this name, and take the more 

 correct one of Cicada or harvest-fly. The very frequent 

 misapplication of names, by persons unacquainted with nat- 

 ural history, is one of the greatest obstacles to the progress of 

 science, and shows how necessary it is that things should be 

 called by their right names, if the observations communicated 

 respQEting them are to be of any service. Every intelligent 

 fanner is capable of becoming a good .observer, and of making 

 valuable discoveries in natural history.;, but if he be ignorant 

 of the proper names of the objects examined, or if he give to 

 them names which previously have been applied by other 

 persons to entirely different objects, he will fail to make the 



