Show Out of Doors in the West Sketches of Natural History in the Rocky Mountain Plateau Edited by J. H. of Study In tb Why and How to Observe the I suspect that most of our readers wil need to be specially urged before they will consent to read any more about that ugly little pest A little more should still be Very high authority can be summoned in favor of the position here taken that every one should know something about insect about the destructive and dangerous Note the following The Scriptural View be four say the are little upon the but they are exceeding wise arc a people not yet they prepare their meat in the conies are but a feeble yet they make their houses in the locusts have no yet they go forth ah of them by bands spider hold with her and is in king's The Scientists' View writes L. in the to with part The Parts Of Besides the large your lens will show that the locust lias three simple making five in The front part of the thorax is called the the middle part the the hind part the To which segment are the first pair of legs the second the third Which part bears the first pair of the second The two oval spots on the first segment of the abdomen are the grasshopper's the other 7 segments are in long each side of the abdomen is a row of breathing hole one on each side of each The four pieces at the end of the body form the egg-layer of the We see two of these pieces m the The of the male ends in a hood-shaped I preach the that we ourselves did not for wo are all idolaters the things of our hands we I preach the however plain and ordinary the sky in rain and the bird on its nest and the nest on its bough the rough bark of the frost on the mouse skittering to its burrow the insect seeking its the smell of the the sweet the leaf that clings to its twig or that falls when its is Wisdom flows from these as it can never flow from libraries and The When in moderate numbers the grasshopper is a clever and so full of life and motion that it is interesting to watch his busy work and listen to lively Keats says of The poetry of earth is never When all the birds are faint with- the hot And hide in cooling a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown That is the grasshopper's he takes the lead In summer luxury ho has never done With his when tired out with fun He rest at ease beneath some pleasant Shall wc agree with Keats and take a look at the The Common There is little trouble in interesting the child about the the main difficulty is to convert the The undertaking seems Like most other people the teacher usually knows little about insects in and cares while as to particular information about any one of our it is rare even among the yet fullness of detail is precisely what is required to interest the general reader and especially so in order to give a series of lessons that shall seem worth Fortunately the facts are readily and if the teacher will but make a the way will The One good way would be to find some grasshopper eggs in fall and bring them in for cover the eggs with soft earth and keep in a cellar till then bring into the school room and permit the pupils to observe the and habits by keeping the insects in Or have the pupils capture a few dozen young Then ask such questions as covers the grasshopper's purpose does this covering pronounced Of what use is it to the insect to wear this smoothly polished coat of patent brown did you find the young On what How could you tell where they had Did they eat up one plant or bite holes in the leaves of Did you find any egg How far beneath he surface of the ground were protected them from How can you tell the male and female Did you find any grasshopper does the hopper shed his How many times does this insect Where the leathery-skin How does the hopper get Proceed by asking about the grasshopper all the set of questions given for the It will be found that either insect furnishes a good means' of out-of-door recreation and observation it also supplies much practical and scientific besides excellent for language and work arid other school There Is Fun In There may be a world of fun in studying because the first thing you have to do is catch your The first thing the hopper will is to spit a brown juice at a substance almost as bad to see or to smell as tobacco Then the insect will use his saw over your finger if he gets a and will fly or jump away so quickly that you will have a rare time in catching him You can drown the insect by holding its body not its head a long time under or you can touch its body with coal or or drop the insect into the cyanide poison bottle kept by the better into You can then answer the following questions More In How many main parts has the Draw the front of the the top of the thorax the side of the In what directions can grasshoppers s To answer this question draw the two large compound eyes and look at them with a lens see the smaller eyes that com pose the lens a small single eye can seen near each antenna and- another simple eye in the center of the Thus the grasshopper has five The antennae are the two slender organs attached to the head in front of the compound The upper lip is seen to cover the by closing upon the lower or If we remove the we can see the or true somewhat square in shape and the mandibles are removed by separating them with a pin and turning each one sidewise till it breaks from the we see another pair of softer jaws called the maxillae each having sharp a little brush of and a pair of 5 jointed feelers called Then if we remove the head of the locust pin it face downwards on a cork we can see the- lower lip or labrum it bears a pair of 3 jointed feelers called labial The jaws open sidewise instead of up and down as do the jaws of higher Each leg is seen to consist of jointed or the nearly round joint next to the body is the the a very small is the the the largest is the with the same name as the principal bone in the human The fourth nearly as long as the femur but more is the named the principal bone between the knee and the ankle of the human All of the leg beyond the tibia the foot or and the last of its three joints bears a pair of little hooks called tarsal plurals of these names The front wings are covers for the hind or under the latter are used in they are beautifully How many modes of locomotion has the Describe motions of the legs make the most is the fiddle For what are the hind legs chiefly Of what use are the spines on the hind border of the What are the antennae What is the advantage of two pairs of How are the hind wings Could you drown a grasshopper by holding its head under What are the breathing pores Why study the life history of this is estimated that in four years the Rocky mountain locust cost western farmers Why study the find the weak How one's feeling of aversion and superstitious horror of knowledge of their Why do grasshoppers spit a dark liquid captured of What birds have you seen attack What do the delicate tracery and vein-ing of the grasshopper's hind or under wing remind you Outstretch the pin them on then make a drawing of the insect with expanded wings showing the reticulated gossamer Actions of To fight the we must know its life history then we may find its weak point and destroy it Our kinds lay their eggs mostly in the late summer and The eggs are to be found slightly beneath the soil Some are known to deposit their eggs in soft The end of the abdomen is pointed in the female for this and rounded in the from which fact we can often distinguish the The female body ends in four horny the male body in The eggs remain in the ground unhatched till the being subject meanwhile to the attacks of numerous enemies predaceous insects and small red In the spring the eggs hatch into small which proceed at once to devour the tender foliage of But the young hoppers do not appear to be great and are so small that they usually escape They feed at first upon and do but little They are so moving about between and distributing their attacks so widely that any single plant is but slightly injured at a and is generally able to grow rapidly enough to keep out the youthful Grasshoppers change their skin as they probably five times before obtaining their They jump or walk about in search of generally leaping in the face of the The dislikes to stand with its side to the After a leap it will turn itself about to face the so that when it leaps again the direction is naturally that from which the wind is The result is that swarms often mass hollows or sheltered creating a little famine thene and forcing the horde to mi grate in a body straight across the devouring everything in their This movement of the young they get their wings is called Fighting the When hoppers come in swarms at smudge fires at the edge of the field may drive them back or may cause the hoppers to pass over the fields so Fires should be built on the windward side of the with leaves to make a dense It is best to add a little sulphur not enough to injure Young hoppers be driven from a field by systematic walking across or may be poisoned by paper soaked in a weak arsenic solution sweetened with molasses or by bran similarly We may also get rid of them by covering fences with cloth so as to make a or by plowing the very young hoppers under the Precious plants or trees may be covered for a time with Hoppers are often destroyed in large numbers by catching them in hopper-dozers shallow oil pang on wooden the eggs are laid mostly in unused fall is often effective in preventing the hatching of the The insects may be most successfully upon the breeding grounds and elsewhere by the use of the hopper-dozer just The apparatus consists' of a shallow say containing crude oil and mounted on wooden runners backed by a The pan is drawn through the field and the hoppers alight in being usually killed by eon-tact with the coal Kinds of What we call grasshoppers called locusts by the It may be well to enumerate the most common and showy of the forms found in the Of the grasshoppers said to be common throughout the Kellogg names the red leg femur-rub which is about an inch with brownish clear hind and brownish fore usually with obscure black spots on the basal half and with Similar to it in size and ap-V is the lesser locust which times occurs in great American locust is of large size inches with reddish body and a longitudinal along the back of the and the fore ggs are and reddish at the great hind wings The y be recognized by its black ft wings with a broad yellowish gin covered with spots' the It measures from 2 inches in and flies the males often hovering a feet above ground and making bud Its body color I ale yellowish or reddish it species of are broad-bodied with n reddish or yellowish at the then a blackish I the apex and the margin Arphia is a similar genus m bright red or yellowish the fore wings without blotches and body more Our common redwing smoky brown fore with clay the hind having a coral-red disk and outer band fading out in j The clouded ry common in the is an 1 long and dusky with darker spots the wing are and the wings ar and The Ses make a loud crackling when pie Kinds of True the slender meadow grass-pers with the long I books name three common the P pointed and I stout meadow blunt robust and slightly curved i I the slender or lance-tailed with blunt d small and slender graceful and nearly slender sometimes larger than Pe eggs of all kinds usually in the stems or root Wes of or iu the pith Their color js usually but a few are light reddish i The song of the males is 1 and and is made by day t as by I C Life of the Red Jl Jp an example of all the I trace the life history of one i ie best known ie red-legged I lays They placed m a hole bored into the and two pods are laid each making 50 eggs in The eggs are usually laid in August and September in hard The female bores a hole about two inches She forces the ovipositor into the then spreads the tips and pushes the dirt against the sides of the which is curved and largest at the It is for this reason that the ground must be hard and free from When the hole is complete the insect lines it with a cement resembling molasses this makes it The 25 eggs are laid in the bottom of this the top third of it is filled with making it water tight and air otherwise the air would shrivel and destroy the At the cement and soil are but a layer of dirt is finally spread over the Thus the ground is left in its original so as not to excite the suspicion of numerous insect since there are twenty or thirty kinds that feed on grasshopper The grasshopper dies after laying its but late in the just before the first cutting of the eggs hatch into tiny grasshoppers when both the ground and the cement are soft from the spring The nymphs dig out of the come through the and straightway shed their This first a sort of has been on the grasshopper for only a few since but has served to keep the dust out of the breathing of his pores on the sides Then for about six weeks the grasshopper feeds and shedding five more each of which in turn gets too small for and being will not He finally eats a large meal and splits it down the then he crawls out with a new soft which he inflates with air till the sun dries The next to the last time he there are small wing-pads to his The wings when fully developed are double or bags at first filled with which gradually stretches them and then out to their full The females usually and then of eggs lay two sacs |