06 
cold ground becomes clothed in delicate green colors, and when 
the first flowers gladden the eyes. The illustration (Fig. 324), 
shows the great difference that exists between the sexes. Dur- 
ing the spring the females deposit from three hundred to four 
hundred very small, globular, orange-colored eggs, which are 
usually hidden in the soil at a depth of one to two inches; this 
is shown in fig. 38, a, as well as an individual egg, c. These 

Fig. 33—Trombidium locustarum.—a, female with her batch of eggs (after Emerton); 
b, newly hatched larva, natural size indicated by the dot within the circle; c, egg; d, e, 
vacated egg shells. (After Riley). 
eggs soon give forth small orange-colored, six-legged and very 
active mites, fig. 83, 6b, whose aim in life seems to be to find liv- 
ing food to which they fasten themselves. If they succeed in 
finding a locust, they fasten themselves very securely to its 
wings, or in case of a pupa to its wing-pads, and almost inva- 
riably to their under side. Here they use their mouth-parts so 
diligently, that their bodies soon swell with the life-blood of 
the attacked host; their former long legs become shorter and 
shorter in proportion, and are soon almost invisible (Fig. 323 a). 
In this condition they can, of course, no longer move about, 
and they look very much like a minute drop of blood, or as an 
egg, and are frequently mistaken for such. We can well imag 
ine that a locust thus infested by one or more of such rapid 
growing mites, must soon become disabled, or at least greatly 
weakened. To such locusts life is no longer a continuous round 
of pleasure, and they soon take a gloomy view of it, or refuse 
to join their festive brethren; they either congregate with sim- 
ilarly affected ones, and are thus found in large numbers upon 
fences, etc., or they drag about their enfeebled bodies separated 
