THE GRASSHOPPER 



hopper emerges from it, carefully pulling its legs and an- 

 tennae from their containing sheaths. The whole process 

 consumes only a few minutes. The emerged grasshopper 

 is now entering its third stage after hatching, but the shed- 

 ding of the hatching skin is usually not counted in the 

 series of molts, and the first subsequent molt, then, we will 

 say, ushers it into its second stage of aboveground life. 

 In this state the insect is different in some respects from 

 what it was in the first stage: it is not only larger, but the 

 body is longer in proportion to the size of the head, as are 

 also the antennae, and particularly the hind legs. Again 

 the insect becomes active and pursues its routine life for 

 another week; then it undergoes a second molting, ac- 

 companied by changes in form and proportions that make 

 it a little more like a mature grasshopper. After shedding 

 its cuticula on three succeeding occasions, it appears in the 

 adult form, which it will retain throughout the remainder 

 of its life. 



The grasshopper developed its legs, its antennae, and 

 most of its other organs while it was in the egg. It was 

 hatched, however, without wings, and yet, as everyone 

 knows, most full-grown grasshoppers have two pairs of 

 wings (Fig. 63, JV 2 , W^), one pair attached to the back of 

 the middle segment of the thorax, the other to the third 

 segment. It has acquired its wings, therefore, during its 

 growth from youth to maturity, and by examining the 

 insect in its different stages (Fig. 9), we may learn some- 

 thing of how the wings are developed. In the first stage, 

 evidence of the coming wings is scarcely apparent, but in 

 the second, the lower hind angles of the plates covering the 

 back of the second and third thoracic segments are a little 

 enlarged and project very slightly as a pair of lobes. In 

 the third stage, the lobes have increased in size and may 

 now be suspected of being rudiments of the wings, which, 

 indeed, they are. At the next molt, when the insect 

 enters its fourth stage, the little wing pads are turned 

 upward and laid over the back, which disposition not only 



[15] 



