228 PROCEEDINGS: BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 
the parents and the young may not descend to earth during their 
entire life, till the frosts of autumn or the exhaustion of old age 
paralyze and kill. The eggs of Meadow-grasshoppers and Cone- 
heads are placed in security deep in the leaf-sheaths of grasses, or 
enclosed in galls, leaves, or other vegetal tissue. Those of Field- 
crickets and most Locusts are embedded in the earth, singly or in 
masses, in wet or dry soil according to the species; those of Tree- 
crickets and certain Locusts are placed in cavities bored in pithy 
stems or even solid wood by the parent, in holes in trees made by 
other insects, or beneath the bark of decayed trees and stumps. 
With all these varied locations of the egg, it is evident that the 
conditions surrounding and affecting the young insect at hatching 
differ widely. It is impossible to treat here of all. As an illus- 
trative example let us select a typical Locust or "Grasshopper" 
Fio. 18. — Egg-mass of Locust; enlarged. 
from above. (After Riley.) 
a, from the side, in burrow; b, from beneath; c, 
which has been thoroughly studied, such as the Rocky Mountain 
Locust (Melanoplus spretus) a near relative and regarded by some 
as a variety of our common Lesser Locust {M. ?». atla7iis) . In this 
species the female excavates by means of her ovipositor a cavity 
an inch or more deep in firm, rather dry soil. Having reached a 
depth governed by the length of the abdomen when extended to 
its utmost, the Locust lays the eggs one by one in an ovoid mass, 
accompanied by a quantity of frothy mucous fluid which soon 
hardens, binding them together and to some extent protecting 
them from injury by moisture. These masses or 'pods' contain 
from 25 to 35 eggs each and several are laid by each female, at 
intervals of a few days. The upper end of the mass terminates 
in a smaller neck of the frothy material, which fills the cavity to 
