The Life of the Grasshopper

by Jean-Henri Fabre

We will return to the big Decticus with the ivory face. The laying follows close upon the strange events which we have described. It is done piecemeal, as the ovaries ripen. Firmly planted on her six legs, the mother bends her abdomen into a semicircle and drives her sabre perpendicularly into the [[236]]soil, which, consisting in my cages of sifted earth, presents no serious resistance. The ovipositor therefore descends without hesitation and enters up to the hilt, that is to say, to a depth of about an inch.

For nearly fifteen minutes, absolute immobility. This is the time when the eggs are being laid. At last the sabre comes up a little way and the abdomen swings briskly from side to side, communicating an alternate transversal movement to the implement. This tends to scrape out and widen the sunken hole; it also has the effect of releasing from the walls earthy materials which fill up the bottom of the cavity. Thereupon the ovipositor, which is half in and half out, rams down this dust. It comes up a short distance and then dips repeatedly, with a sudden, jerky movement. We should work in the same way with a stick to ram down the earth in a perpendicular hole. Thus alternating the transversal swing of the sabre with the blows of the rammer, the mother covers up the well pretty quickly.

The external traces of the work have still to be done away with. The insect’s legs, which I expected to see brought into play, remain inactive and keep the position [[237]]adopted for laying the eggs. The sabre alone scratches, sweeps and smooths the ground with its point, very clumsily, it must be admitted.

Now all is in order. The abdomen and the ovipositor are restored to their normal positions. The mother allows herself a moment’s rest and goes to take a turn in the neighbourhood. Soon she comes back to the site where she has already laid her eggs and, very near the original spot, which she recognizes clearly, she drives in her tool afresh. The same proceedings as before are repeated.

Follow another rest, another exploration of the vicinity, another return to the place already sown. For the third time the pointed stake descends, only a very slight distance away from the previous hole. During the brief hour that I am watching her, I see her resume her laying five times, after breaking off to take a little stroll in the neighbourhood; and the points selected are always very close together.

On the following days, at varying intervals, the sowing is renewed for a certain number of times which I am not able to state exactly. In the case of each of these partial [[238]]layings, the site changes, now here, now there, as this or that spot is deemed the more propitious.

When everything is finished, I examine the little pits in which the Decticus placed her eggs. There are no packets in a foamy sheath, such as the Locust supplies; no cells either. The eggs lie singly, without any protection. I gather three score as the total product of one mother. They are of a pale lilac-grey and are drawn out shuttlewise, in a narrow ellipsoid five or six millimetres long.[3]

The same isolation marks those of the Grey Decticus, which are black; those of the Vine Ephippiger, which are ashen-grey; and those of the Alpine Analota, which are pale-lilac. The eggs of the Green Grasshopper, which are a very dark olive-brown and, like those of the White-faced Decticus, about sixty in number, are sometimes arranged singly and sometimes stuck together in little clusters.

These different examples show us that the Grasshoppers plant with a dibble. Instead of packing their seeds in little casks of hardened foam, like the Locusts, they put [[239]]them into the earth one by one or in very small clusters.

The hatching is worth examination; I will explain why presently. I therefore gather plenty of eggs of the big Decticus at the end of August and place them in a small glass jar with a layer of sand. Without undergoing any apparent modification, they spend eight months here under cover, sheltered from the frosts, the showers and the overpowering heat of the sun that would await them under natural conditions.