The Life of the Grasshopper

THE LIFE OF THE GRASSHOPPER
THE WORKS OF J. H. FABRE
THE LIFE OF THE GRASSHOPPER
BY J. HENRI FABRE Translated by ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS, F.Z.S.
HODDER AND STOUGHTON LIMITED LONDON
I have ventured in the present volume to gather together, under the somewhat loose and inaccurate title of The Life of the Grasshopper , the essays scattered over the Souvenirs entomologiques that treat of Grasshoppers, Crickets, Locusts and such insects as the Cicada, or Cigale , the Mantis and the Cuckoo-spit, or, to adopt the author’s happier and more euphonious term, the Foamy Cicadella. They exhaust the number of the orthopterous and homopterous insects discussed by Henri Fabre.
At the moment of writing, the only one of the following essays that has been published before, in my translation, is the first of the three describing the White-faced Decticus, which appeared, in the summer of last year, in the English Review .
Miss Frances Rodwell has again lent me the most valuable assistance in preparing this volume; and I am indebted also to Mr. Osman Edwards and Mr. Stephen McKenna for their graceful rhymed versions of the occasional lyrics that adorn it.
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos.
Fame is built up mainly of legend; in the animal world, as in the world of men, the story takes precedence of history. Insects in particular, whether they attract our attention in this way or in that, have their fair share in a folk-lore which pays but little regard to truth.
Vous chantiez! J’en suis bien en aise.
with their petty malice, have done more for the Cicada’s celebrity than all her talent as a musician. They enter the child’s mind like a wedge and never leave it.