Part 35

No, indeed, Ned, the finest jumper in the world of men cannot begin to jump as well as a grasshopper, not even with the aid of a spring board. He is a mere baby in comparison.

Ah, yes, we can do a great many things better than the grasshoppers, but, you see, they can do some things better than we can.

What is that, John?

You want to know about the mouth parts of the grasshopper?

Suppose we leave the mouth parts.

They are difficult to understand. We have had a good many new names to learn lately.

What, May? You can't remember such hard words?

Oh, yes, of course you can.

You don't mind learning "rhinoceros," and "Mississippi," and "Popocatepetl," and "eenie, meenie, monie mike," and they are quite as hard as femur and tibia; and, besides, you have a femur yourself! Did you know it?

Your thigh bone, like the grasshopper's thigh, is called a femur.

Yes, Mollie, there is a bone in your leg called the tibia, and you have a tarsus in your foot.

So, after all, when you are learning hard words about insects you are learning a great deal besides, as you will find.

PRETTY KATYDIDS

Katy did!

Katy didn't!

Katy did!

Well, well, did she or didn't she, and what of it anyway.

Come here, Katy did and Katy didn't, the children want to see you.

She's a pretty little Did and Didn't, isn't she.

Katy, why do you not know your own mind and always tell the same story?

Krick--krick--krick, there, she is talking; that's her way of saying "Katy did."

Krick--krick--krickkrick. Now she has said "Katy didn't."

Well, we never shall know anything more about it.

No, little Nell, she doesn't really say Katy did or Katy didn't, but it sounds like that, and we make believe she says it.

John says he is sure the katydids are first cousins to the grasshoppers and locusts, and so they are.

They are very closely related to--which division of locusts, do you think?

Oh, yes, the longhorned, of course.

See their long, long antennae, and the male has the same little musical places on his wings, little membranes that vibrate and make his song of Katy did and Katy didn't.