Part 21

Our mantis lays its eggs, thirty or forty in number, on tree twigs, and they are embedded in a soft substance that soon becomes very tough and horny. These strange egg-cases of the mantis are easily recognized because they look as though they were braided on top, as you can see in the picture.

Yes, May, the tough covering is to protect the eggs from wet and from prying birds and hungry insects.

The young mantes are similar to their parents, only they have no wings. But they hold up their spiny front legs and catch insects, and they grow and moult in the usual way.

While we have been talking about leaf-like insects and mule-killers our walking stick has gone off.

Well, well, let him go, and good luck go with him.

I am glad you like the walking stick, children.

And now, May, let me tell you something.

This queer fellow is a very near relative of your friend, the cockroach.

THE GRASSHOPPER TRIBES

Don't you often wonder where they come from? The swarms of grasshoppers in the late summer?

Charlie says he walked across a field last night where he believes there were as many grasshoppers as there were blades of grass.

Just think of it! and yet they do not seem to do any harm.

In some places, however, they do a great deal of harm.

They come flying in swarms that darken the sun, and they settle on the trees and the crops and eat up every green thing. There is nothing a Western farmer dreads so much as the passing of the grasshoppers.

Grasshoppers are funny little fellows, and we like them--when there are not too many of them.

Summer would not seem quite like summer unless we heard the grasshoppers shrilling.

There are a great many species of them, and we have placed them in two divisions,--The Shorthorned Grasshoppers and The Longhorned Grasshoppers.

THE SHORTHORNED GRASSHOPPERS

They have no horns, of course, but some have short antennae that stick out like little horns, and those we call shorthorned.

The right name for the shorthorned grasshoppers is locusts.

We call another insect a locust, but the shorthorned grasshoppers are the true locusts.

Some say it was these locusts that John the Baptist ate with his honey in the wilderness.

A good many people in different parts of the world still eat locusts.

They are said to be good food when roasted, but I would rather eat roasted peanuts.

Come here, little locust, and let us look at you.

Now, stand still, and show us your short "horns."

See its eyes!

Yes, May, they are compound eyes, but I do not know how many facets they have.