76 nature sketches in temperate america 



The Habits of the Walking-Stick 



Among the most curious members of the Orthoptera, or 

 grasshopper family, are the walking-sticks. This name is 

 applied to these insects because of the resemblance their long 

 cylindrical bodies bear to sticks or twigs of trees. I have found 

 them in greatest abundance among the undergrowth and herbage 

 in the mixed beech forests. Here, between the first of June and 

 the last of August, the various green stages of the young insects 

 are frequently met with, while after this period the large, 

 mature gray and brown forms scatter put among the open 

 woods. At this period, moreover, the adults are often found 

 on the trunks of the fruit trees in orchards.' The males are 

 much smaller than the females, and not infrequently the former 

 retain their green color in adult life. 



There is but one generation of these variable insects each 

 year, the numerous eggs being dropped one at a time on the 

 ground by the females in September. These eggs usually fall 

 among the leaves in the forests. They are shining black and 

 have a bright stripe on one side which gives them a near resem- 

 blance to a small, seed of some leguminous plant. Being laid 

 in the Jail, the eggs remain on the ground during the winter 

 and hatch in the following spring. The first young appear, 

 as I have above intimated, about the first week in June, but 

 the exact time of incubating and hatching varies to a considera- 

 able extent. On June 22, 1906, I found the average size of 

 the young to be three-eighths of an inch in length. 



I never fully appreciated the value of the green color to 

 young walking-sticks, and conversely, the use of the gray and 

 brown colors to the adults, until one day on examining the 

 foliage of a sapling oak I happened to be in a position to look 

 down upon a cluster of its rich green leaves. Here I observed 

 a young, half-grown walking-stick astride one of the leaves. 

 His body was directly in line with the middle of the leaf, with 

 his head directed toward the stem. When I first discovered 

 him his forelegs were, as usual, closed together alongside the 

 slender antennae which projected forward. The leaves of this 

 oak were deep green, with the light pale green veins contrasting 

 somewhat conspicuously. The position of the insect was such 



