Grasshopper Tribes
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 antennæ, 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.
Pretty Katydids
No, the little lady katydid cannot sing—only the little male, and he keeps it up all night long.
We sometimes wish he would get tired or sleepy and stop, but he never does.
Why do you suppose he likes to sing so well in the night?
The katydids generally live on trees and bushes.
Yes, they are a beautiful, pale green people, and that is one reason we do not often see them. It is not easy to find a katydid among the green leaves.
The female katydids have a long sword-shaped ovipositor with which they roughen the bark on twigs, and place the eggs there, fastening them with a gummy substance.
The egg is glued fast so it will not fall off.
It hatches into a little dot of a katydid that has no wings, but, like the larvæ of the other insects we know about, it eats and grows and moults, and at last its wings and the rest of its body are full grown.
It casts its skin for the last time; it is no longer a larva, but a full-grown insect.
Yes, May, we call the young of all insects larvæ.
Pretty Katydids
See this dainty katydid that Charlie has caught for us.
How pretty it is!
Its feelers are like long green threads.
And how sensitive they are!
It quickly starts away when we touch one of the feelers.
Yes, Mollie, the katydid walks more than the grasshopper.
It can jump well with those long, slender hind legs. How beautiful its hind legs are! They are longer and more delicate than those of the grasshopper.
And its wings, how gauzy and dainty! Its wing covers are not so stiff as those of the grasshopper.They look almost like flying wings, they are so delicate.
See, they open, and fasten themselves open, like the wing covers of the grasshopper; and when they are at rest they overlap like the wings of the grasshopper.
The inner wings are like fine lace.
They look too delicate for use, and yet the katydid flies very well indeed with them.
They are a little longer than the wing covers.
Pretty Katydids
When the katydid is at rest you can see the tips of the wings extending beyond the ends of the wing covers.
The part of the inner wing that extends beyond the wing covers is green, like the wing covers, you see.
But the rest of the inner wing is not green, it is like very thin glass, or like fine isinglass.
Look for a moment at the long curved ovipositor of the female katydid.
If you look sharp, you will see teeth on it like a little saw. It is with these teeth the little katydid is able to rasp the surface of the twigs, and make a place to fasten her eggs to.
Her wings are wrapped about her form like an ample cloak of green.
Pretty Katydids
Now, my little katydid, you may fly away if you want to.
We are very much obliged to you for letting us look at you, and we hope we have not troubled you too much.
See her go!
How prettily the katydids fly.
They seem almost like little birds.
I am sure they love to fly about in the bright summer-time.
Happy katydids.
Cricket-like Grasshoppers
Now what strange-looking little creature are you?
John says it looks like a grasshopper, only it has no wings and its body is not that of a grasshopper.
May says it looks like a cricket, only it has the long legs of a grasshopper.
It is called the cricket-like grasshopper, and it is partly like a cricket, as you see, and partly like a grasshopper.
It is a funny little fellow that lives around in dark corners, usually in the woods.
Do see those long, spiny legs!
Cricket-like Grasshoppers
How hecanjump.
He has strong, short, sharp spines on the femurs and on the tibias.
He has spines on all his legs, and what long feet he has!
Yes, Nell, his antennæ are longer thananything else about him. I should think they would be in his way.
He has no wings at all, and he never will have any.
He has two pairs of feelers in front of his mouth that show very plainly. They show more plainly than the mouth parts of the grasshopper, though they are quite like them.
Yes, Ned, they are larger than the mouth parts of the grasshopper.
There is another little fellow very similar to the cricket-like grasshopper.
It has no wings, and the top of the thorax is like a broad shield.
It is called the shield-backed grasshopper.
See if you can find one of them.
Cricket-like Grasshoppers
Chirp! chirp!
Chirp! chirp!
The Cheery Cricket People
Ah, listen to that cheery song. It is the cricket on the hearth singing thus gayly.
Dear little cricket; he lives in the corner by the fireplace. When all is still we hear his cheery chirp! chirp! chirp!
Sometimes he comes peering out and runs across the hearth, a little black fireside fairy.
Do you know one of the prettiest stories in the world has been written about a cricket?
Charles Dickens wrote it, and it is called "The Cricket on the Hearth."
Be sure to read this beautiful story. If you do not own it, ask to have it for Christmas. It is in the book of "Christmas Tales," a book that everybody ought to have.
Grasshoppers and katydids are pleasant people, but they live out of doors, and they do not seem quite so much like our very own little friends as the crickets.
Of course the crickets live out of doors, too, only once in a while one of them comes into the house to live with us.
We hear them chirping in the grass and among the stones.
The Cheery Cricket People
There is a certain place near the seashore where the rocks are alive with the black cricket folk.
They come peeping out at you from all sides. They skip over the rocks, and you will often see a pair of long feelers and an inquisitive little head looking around a corner.
You too, know there are crickets, little Nell?
Let us go and see them.
Ah, yes, there is one, looking at us out of inquisitive eyes, over there by that big stone.
The Cheery Cricket People
Of course they are cousins to the grasshoppers. I knew you would guess that right away.
Yes, John, the little cricket people have flat backs.
Their wing covers do not make a peaked roof over their backs, but are flat on top and bent down at the sides like a box cover.
The Cheery Cricket People
They are not so long as the wings of the grasshopper, but they overlap on top.
Sometimes they are not so long as the body of the cricket.
Just watch now!
How spry the cricket folk are!
They jump well, but they also run well. They are always running about as though they enjoyed it.
It is not easy to catch one of them unless we, too, are "as spry as a cricket."
Funny little rascals, to come peeping at us like that, from out the crevices in the stones.
When we stir,—pop! they are back out of sight.
The Cheery Cricket People
They eat leaves, and they enjoy a piece of nice, ripe fruit, or a bit of juicy vegetable.
See here, one has jumped on my hand and is sitting quite still.
Male CricketMale Cricket
It is a male cricket.
How do I know that?
May says because it has no ovipositor.
Yes, that is one way to know.
Look at his wing covers.
See how they are ribbed.
Female CricketFemale Cricket
Now look at this cricket Mabel has caught. It is a female, and its wings, you see, are not ornamented like those of the male.
Do you know the meaning of his heavily ribbed wing covers?
Why, his wing covers are his musical instruments. See one of them magnified.
The Cheery Cricket People
It is divided into spaces like so many little drum-heads. The ridge that runs across the top of the wing is something like a file in structure.
When little Mr. Cricket is in the mood for chirping, he raises his wing covers and rubs them together.
This throws the stiff membranes of which the wing covers are made into vibration, and the result is the cheery call of our little black fairy.
Little Nell says the cricket is more like a brownie than a fairy, and maybe she is right.
You can easily see the crickets rub their wings together if you watch in the fall of the year.
John says, Why do you have to watch in the fall of the year?
Now who can guess?
Yes, May, it is because the crickets are then full-grown, and have large wing covers. At first, in the early summer, they have no wings, and so of course, we could not see them chirp.
The whole grasshopper tribe is a vocal one; the males all have musical instruments, and in Japan, the people are so fond of the song oftheirgrasshopper folk, which are not quite like ours, that they make tiny cages for them.
The chirpers are caught and put in these cages, and sold in the city streets.
Yes, little Nell, the crickets make molasses. So do the katydids.
All these little hopping neighbors of ours seem to understand the useful art of molasses making.
The Cheery Cricket People
The mole crickets are different from the others.
They burrow in the ground like a mole, and we do not often see them.
The strangest thing about them is their hands.
No, of course they are not really hands, but they look like them.
All the joints of the fore legs are modified to form strong digging tools, and they look very much like the paws of the mole.
The Cheery Cricket People
They are troublesome fellows, sometimes, when they eat the tender roots of the vegetables in the garden.
You all have seen the little tree cricket, but you might not recognize it as a cricket, it is such a pale little creature.
Its light green body may often be seen on bushes in the summer-time, and, if you look carefully, the form will tell you what the little one is.
The Cheery Cricket People
A Large Family
The crickets, grasshoppers, walking sticks, praying mantes, and cockroaches, strange as it may seem, are all near relatives to each other.
They all belong to one large family or order, theOrthoptera.
Or-thop-te-ra, is it not a hard word!
It will not seem so hard when you know what it means.
It comes from two Greek wordsorthos, meaning straight, andpteron, meaning a wing.
Straight-wing.
And do you know, it does not mean that theupperwings are straight, but that the under wings are folded down in long straight lines.
Now let us see if we can tell in what ways all of our Orthoptera are alike.
They all have—?
"Four wings"—that is right, little Nell.
What, John? the walking sticks have no wings?
A Large Family
Not our walking sticks, but yet they belong to a winged family. You remember the tropical walking sticks that have queer leaf-like wings, do you not?
Are the four wings alike?
No, John says, the upper ones are narrow and stiff and serve as wing covers.
The inner ones are broader and more delicate. They fold up when not in use and are used to fly with.
Very good indeed, John. Now I will tell you something. The Orthoptera all have mouth parts made to bite with. They do not bite anything but what they eat, however. They are quite harmless so far as we are concerned.
The young Orthoptera look like the old ones, only they have no wings. They hatch out of the egg with a head, a six-legged thorax, and an abdomen.
Now, come, let us look at all of our orthopterous friends again, cockroaches first.
A Large Family
How do they get about, John?
Yes, indeed, they run, the rascals. They run fast too. They are flat and their six legs are very much alike. They are well built for running and hiding in cracks.
Suppose we call them theRunning Orthoptera.
Now, look at our mantis.
He does not run very much. How is he different from the others?
Ah, yes, he has big front legs, and little Nell says he grabs things with them.
A Large Family
So he does. Now, what shall we call these grabbers?
The Grabbing Orthoptera, Ned says.
Suppose we say instead theGrasping Orthoptera, because grasping sounds a little better than grabbing. Do you not think so?
A Large Family
Now for Mr. Walking Stick.
We cannot very well call him a member of the Running Orthoptera, can we?
Ah, Mollie has it. We must call his kind theWalking Orthoptera.
His six legs are all long and slender, and he moves them slowly.
Orthoptera
Now for those fellows with the long hind legs, the locusts and katydids and crickets. Yes, all of you are ready to name them.
We call them—what?
May says, the Hopping Orthoptera.
John thinks Jumping Orthoptera would sound better.
And that is what we name them, theJumping Orthoptera.
How many kinds of Jumping Orthoptera are weacquainted with, Ned? Now, think before you speak.
He says we know the shorthorned grasshoppers, or locusts, the longhorned, or meadow, grasshoppers, and the crickets.
Very well done, Ned.
May wants to know what has become of the katydids and the cricket-like grasshoppers—she thinks Ned has left them out.
Ned says they belong to the longhorned grasshoppers.
Now you shall have a list of the Orthoptera that will help you to remember them.
If we can group together things that are like each other, it is easier to remember them.
Order Orthoptera.Running Orthoptera.Cockroaches, Croton Bugs.Grasping Orthoptera.Praying Mantis.Walking Orthoptera.Walking Sticks.Jumping Orthoptera.Shorthorned Grasshoppers, or Locusts.Longhorned, or Meadow, Grasshoppers.Crickets.
There are a great many species of Orthoptera in the world, and we have seen but a very few of them.
But I can tell you, we feel a little better acquainted with you orthopterous fellows than we did.
The dragon fly says we have not given him a place.
But, dear dragon fly, you belong to another family. You are not an orthopterous insect.
Your order is called theOdo-na-ta.
The wings of the Odonata are very different from those of the Orthoptera.
A Large Family
You remember how they are?
Yes, Ned, they are stiff and covered with a close network of fine veins, and all four of them are alike.
No wing covers, you see.
I do not know why they have the name Odonata.
The young Odonata are not like their parents, excepting that they have a head, a thorax with six legs, and an abdomen. But they certainly do not look like their parents!
No, John, the May flies do not belong to the Odonata. Their wings are quite different.
A Large Family
Do you not remember how small the hind wings are?
The name of their order isEph-e-mer-i-da.
There is a big name for a little insect!
It comes from the Greek wordephemeros, and you know what it means.
What? Has everybody forgotten about the dainty little ephemeræ, that live but a day?
That is whatephemerosmeans, lasting but a day.
The stone flies have four wings, but they are not like those of the Odonata, or of the Ephemerida.
Do you remember how the hind wings are folded?
Yes, May, in plaits, so these are the plaited wings, orPle-cop-te-ra, frompteran, a wing, andplecos, plaited.
The little silver fish, as you remember, has no wings at all, so its order is calledThy-sa-nu-ra, from its bristle tail,thysanos, in Greek, meaning a tassel, andoura, the tail.
The Great Bug Family
Now, my children, do you know what a bug is? Most people do not.
They call every insect a "bug," but bugs are bugs, flies are flies, ants are ants, and neither flies nor ants are bugs.
Indeed, no insects are bugs—excepting just bugs!
Our croton bugs are not really bugs. They do not belong to the bug family.
A bug has four wings—when it has any.
The Great Bug Family
But its wings are not like those of the Orthoptera or Odonata or Ephemerida or Plecoptera.
Some bugs have no wings.
Young bugs are like old bugs, only smaller, and they have no wings.
You remember the Orthoptera and Odonata bite their food.
They chew it up and swallow it.
Bugs do not bite, they suck. Their mouthparts are often grown together in the form of a tube that is sometimes very sharp.
They stick these sharp tubes or beaks into their food, and suck it up.
What, May; you want to see a bug? Well, that is easy enough.
Here is one in this pond at our feet. Do you know it?
The Water Boatman
Yes, John; it is the water boatman.
Nell says she doesn't see it.
There, Nell, that little thing that shines like silver under the water. It is clinging to a weed.
No, we cannot see it very well unless we catch it.
Ned, do you think you can be spry enough to scoop it out with the net?
There, he has it,—no, it is off.
Well, we shall never see that one again; but here, in this corner of the pond, see, several of them.
The Water Boatman
Now don't be in too great a hurry, Ned; they are hard to catch.
He has it!
Here, don't touch it,—bugs are biters, remember.
Put it in this tumbler of water, and clap the cover over it—quick—so!—now we have it.
What is that, Mollie? I just said bugs do not bite, and now I call them biters?
I don't wonder you are puzzled.
They donotbite, but they pierce with their mouth tubes, and that feels just as though they bit us. So we commonly speak of bugs as biting.
If you wish to be very exact, we will hereafter speak of bugs as piercing or sucking.
Now, Mr. Water Boatman, we are going to have a good look at you.
Nell says it is not like silver any more, but just a little black and gray speckled bug.
That is because it is now on top of the water. When it goes under it is surrounded with a layer of air, and that is what makes it look as though it had on a silver dress.
May wants to know how it manages to take a layer of air down under the water. If you were to look at it with a magnifying glass, May, you would see it is covered with fine hairs; the air becomes entangled in these hairs. Do you not remember how the leaf of the jewel weed, or touch-me-not, as it is also called, shines when you plunge it in water? It, too, is covered with fine hairs that hold air. Many leaves shine in this waywhen put under water, and always because of the fine hairs that prevent the air from being pushed out by the water. You see the hairs on the bugs serve the same purpose as those on the leaves; they hold fast the air.
Our water boatman breathes this air that surrounds him.
You know how insects breathe do you not?
Dear me, then I shall have to tell you.
They have no lungs; of course, so they cannot breathe with lungs as we do.
Take a long breath—see how your chest rises—that is because you filled your lungs full of air.
Well, the insects have to breathe air.
Every living thing has to breathe air. Nothing in the world could live without air.
Even plants breathe the air, you know.
Now, there is a little row of holes or pores along each side of the abdomen of the insect.
These are the breathing pores. No, May, the insects do not breathe through their mouths, they breathe through their sides.
The Water Boatman
You can see the breathing pores, or spiracles, as they are called, very plainly in many insects.
You can see them on the abdomen of the locust, and in some caterpillars they are bright-colored spots.
There are spiracles on the sides of the thorax, too, but they do not show so plainly as those on the abdomen.
The spiracles open into air tubes that carry air to the blood of the insect.
SpiraclesSpiracles
If you watch a grasshopper or a bee, you can plainly see it breathe. The abdomen moves in the bee as though it were panting. These movements of the abdomen cause the air to go in and out. All insects move their abdomens to send the air in and out, but it does not show plainly in all of them, for, though insects need air, some of them can get along with very little.
Yes, John, insects have blood. It is not just like our blood, but still it is blood.
It is not generally red in color, though sometimes it is reddish, and sometimes it is brown, or violet, or even bright green.
Yes, that seems strange to you, but you remember how ears are ears, and serve to hear with, no matter where on the body of the creature they are located.So blood is blood, and serves the purpose of blood, no matter what its color. The blood of some insects has a very bad odor, and in the case of certain beetles, when they are disturbed, this foul-smelling liquid oozes out of the joints of the legs.
Yes, Mabel, it is probably used, like the "molasses" of other little friends we know, to repel enemies.
But to return to breathing. Some larvæ breathe by gills, and do not have spiracles until they are grown up, but all grown-up insects breathe by spiracles.
Yes, John, the larvæ of the dragon flies and May flies breathe with gills.
I thought you would remember that.
The water boatman breathes by spiracles, and carries his supply of air with him. All grown-up bugs breathe by spiracles.
Now look down into the pond. I think you will see some water boatmen anchored near the bottom.
Yes, May, they cling by their front feet. Their hind pair of legs are rather odd-looking; they have a fringe of hairs on the inside.
John says their hind legs are modified to swim with.
Very good, John.
The hind legs are the oars that row these little boats about in the water.
But why are the little boats that have come to anchor down there moving their paddles so constantly?
Ah, yes; it is because they want fresh air to breathe.
You know there is always air in pond water, and they keep their paddles moving, so as to change the envelope of air that surrounds them.
The Water Boatman
They know what to do to take care of themselves, if theyarenothing but little bugs.
When winter comes, they go down to the bottom of the pond and bury themselves in the mud. They lie there without moving or breathing until spring, when out they come, as lively as ever.
Yes, certain other animals pass the winter in this way; the bears, for instance, find a snug den and sleep all through the coldest winter weather. We call this winter sleep of animals hibernation, and many of the insects hibernate.
Yes, Ned, hibernating animals can get on with very little air; they sometimes seem to need none at all, and they take no food.
May wants to know what these queer water boatmen eat.
They suck out the juices of other insects.
They must lay their eggs in the water, little Nell thinks.
And so they do, on water plants.
Near the city of Mexico there are species that lay enormous quantities of eggs in the ponds, and what do you think? The Indians mix these eggs with meal, make them into cakes, and eat them.
The Mexican bugs are gathered by the ton, too, and sent to England as food for cage birds, fish, and poultry.
Little Nell thinks there must be a great many bugs in a ton. Indeed, there are, probably about twenty-five millions of them; so you can imagine Mexico is well supplied with water boatmen!
When the young ones hatch out they look like their parents, only, of course, they are tiny little dots of things that have no wings.
The Water Boatman
But they eat and grow and moult like other larvæ until they are full-grown insects.
What have you discovered, Ned? You look surprised.
The water boatman has no antennæ!
It doesn't seem to have any. But look carefully and I think you will find some tiny ones tucked away under its head.
Nell wants to know if the water boatman has a thorax and an abdomen.
Indeed, it has, but you will have to look carefully to see them. Its abdomen is short and thick and hard. The water boatman is much more compact in form than the Orthoptera, or any of the other insects we have studied.
You are right, John, an insect with a long abdomen, like the grasshopper, could not get on very well in the water.
Now, May, take the cover off the tumbler. There!
Our water boatman was not slow to make use of his wings.
Well, good-by and good luck to you, little water boatman.
The Water Boatman
What, John? You know a water boatman that swims on its back?
That makes Nell laugh, and no wonder.
Yes, there is a little bug that swims on its back.
The Funny Back-swimmers
It is very much like the water boatman, and it has long paddles made of its queer hind legs.
Unlike the water boatman, however, its back is not flat but is shaped like the keel of a boat.
This being the case, it just turns over and swims with its keel-shaped back in the water.
It is sometimes called the back-swimmer, and most boys are well acquainted with it.
What do you think about catching it in your fingers, Ned?
Ah, you do not like to!
It has a very sharp beak for sucking the life out of other insects, and if you succeed in getting hold of it, it will stick that into your finger.
And my! how it does sting!
It is not an easy matter to catch it, however,—it is such a quick little rascal.
The Giant Water Bug
A good many kinds of bugs live in the water, but perhaps the oddest of all is the giant water bug.
Itisa giant!
Have you ever seen very large, flat brown bugs lying on the ground under the electric street lamps?
Those are the giant water bugs.
They fly in the night from pond to pond, and are attracted by bright lights.
They fly into the electric lights, and are killed in great numbers sometimes.
This is such a common habit with them that in some places they are called electric light bugs.
The Giant Water Bug
A good many people never saw these bugs until theywere found dead under the electric lights, and so they imagined they did not exist until electric lights were invented.
But that is a very foolish notion; the bugs were here thousands of years before electric lights were dreamed of.
The giant water bugs are not pleasant to handle when alive.
If you ever succeed in catching one in the water, which is not easy, they slip about so quickly, be sure and not take it in your fingers.
The California children call a species they have there "toe-biters," and they say they bite their toes when they go in wading.
The giant water bugs are the largest of living bugs, and they even kill and eat fish.
Their fore legs can shut up like a jackknife. The tibia shuts into a groove in the femur, and thus the bug is able to seize and hold its prey.
It clasps its victim in its arms, as it were, and calmly proceeds to suck out its blood.
In some species of the giant water bugs the female does not leave her eggs in the pond to take care of themselves; she puts them on the back of her mate, who is obliged to carry all of his progeny about with him until they relieve him by hatching out and swimming off to see life for themselves.