78 



Tlie Rocky Mountain Locust. 



while it is shed within a few minutes of the time when the 

 animal reaches the free air, it is seldom shed if, from one 

 cause or other, there is failure to escape from the soil, even 

 though the young locust may be struggling for days to 

 effect an escape. 



While yet enveloped in this pellicle, the animal possesses 

 great forcing and pushing power, and if the soil be not too 

 compact, will frequently force a direct passage through the 

 same to the surface, as indicated at the dotted lines, Fig. 

 9, e. But if the soil is at all compressed it can make little 

 or no headway, except through the appropriate channel 

 (d). While crowding its way out, the antennas and four 

 front legs are held in much the same position as within the 

 egg, the hind legs being generally stretched. But the 

 members bend in every conceivable way, and where sev- 

 eral are endeavoring to work through any particular 

 passage, the amount of squeezing and crowding they will 

 endure is something remarkable. Yet if by chance the 

 protecting pellicle is worked off before issuing from the 

 ground, the animal loses all power of further forcing its 

 way out. The instinctive tendency to push upwards is 

 also remarkable. In glass tubes, in which I have had the 

 eggs hatching in order to watch the young, these last 

 would always turn their heads and push toward the bot- 

 tom whenever the tubes were turned mouth downward ; 

 while in tin boxes where the eggs were placed at different 

 depths in the ground, the young never descended, even 

 when they were unable to ascend on account of the com- 

 pactness of the soil above. 



GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATIONS. 



The little locust when first hatched is quite pale, but 

 soon becomes mottled with gray and brown. Except in 

 having a shorter, narrower prothorax, sloping roof-fashion 



