WART-EATING GRASSHOPPER (TWO VIEWS).
Used by Swedish peasants to bite off their warts.
The last family includes the Short-horned Grasshoppers, or True Locusts, so very destructive in many countries, though the real Migratory Locusts are only casual visitors to England, the native British species being all small insects, found among grass, and doing but little damage. The commonest of the Migratory Locusts visiting Britain is the Red-legged Locust, which expands from 2 to 4 inches, and has grey wing-cases varied with brown, pale green hind wings, and red hind shanks, with white black-tipped spines. Another species, the Egyptian Locust, more rarely met with, has brown fore wings, and grey hind wings, crossed by a broad blackish band. Two photographs are given on page [693] of a specimen brought to England among vegetables in the spring of 1901. Many foreign locusts, large and small, have beautiful red or blue hind wings, and some of these are common on the Continent, though not in England; those found in Europe are comparatively small, measuring only 1 or 2 inches across the wing-cases; but some of the great South American locusts measure as much as 7 or 8 inches in expanse. However, some of the smaller species, such as the Cyprian Locust and the Rocky Mountain Locust, which measure less than 2 inches across the wing-cases, are much more destructive than the large species.
A real invasion of locusts is a terrible calamity, for the insects fly like birds, but in vast flocks, and devour every scrap of vegetation where they settle. Sometimes a flight, two or three miles broad, continues to fly steadily over the same spot for hours together. Sometimes flocks perish at sea, and are cast up on the beach in heaps like sand-hills, extending for a distance of forty or fifty miles. Nor are the young locusts less destructive before they acquire wings; for they march across a district in such numbers as to extinguish fires, fill up trenches, and overcome all similar obstacles placed in their way by sheer force of numbers; and it is well said of a visitation of locusts, "The land is as the Garden of Eden before them, and behind is a desolate wilderness."
NERVE-WINGED OR LACE-WINGED INSECTS, OR DRAGON-FLIES AND THEIR RELATIVES.
BY THE REV. THEODORE WOOD, F.E.S.
The Nerve-winged Insects owe their title to the peculiar character of their wings, the horny veins which form the framework of those organs being multiplied and sub-divided to such an extent that they assume the appearance of exceedingly delicate network.
These insects fall naturally into two great groups, in one of which the chrysalis, or pupa, is active, and continues to take food like the grub, while in the other it is passive and helpless, like that of a butterfly or a moth.
Prominent among the members of the first division are the Dragon-flies, which owe their title partly to their extreme voracity, and partly to the fact that they feed entirely upon living insects, which they pursue through the air. They are exceedingly swift of wing, and may be seen hawking over ponds and streams on any fine day throughout the summer and early autumn.
The earlier part of their lives is spent in the water, in which the eggs are laid by the parent insect. The grubs are usually of a dull grey or brownish-green colour, and are remarkable for a curious organ known as the "mask," which partly covers the lower surface of the head. This apparatus consists of two joints, which fold upon one another, but can be extended at will, the one farthest from the head terminating in a pair of large and powerful jaws. When the grub perceives an insect-victim, it swims cautiously beneath, and seizes it by means of these jaws. The "mask" is then folded, and the prisoner drawn down within reach of the mandibles, by means of which it is speedily devoured.