[Illustration]
Those larvæ had no wings at first, but the wings grew, and finally at
the last moult they were full-sized.
When first hatched, the locust larva is like the full-grown locust,
only, of course, it is very small, and it has no wings at all.
It is a little dot of a thing with an enormous head.
Here are three clinging to a blade of grass.
Are they not funny little rascals!
The baby locust eats and grows and moults until, finally, the wings
begin to show as little pads at its sides.
[Illustration]
It is easy to find these half-grown grasshoppers in the middle of the
summer.
Here is one that little Nell has caught.
See its wing pads.
Mollie says they are rudimentary wings.
It continues to eat and grow and moult, and the little wings are moulted
off with the rest of the skin--for the wings of the insect are only
modified parts of the skin.
But there are new and larger wings underneath, and these grow and are
moulted off with the next skin, until, at last, the grasshopper is
full-grown, with full-grown wings.
It will not moult any more after that.
When full-grown, the females lay their eggs.
Where do you suppose they lay their eggs?
Some of them make a hole in the ground.
The end of the abdomen is very strong and sharp, and the locust can make
a hole with it quite easily.
When the hole is made, then the eggs are laid in it, and the locust
covers the opening to the hole with a sticky substance to keep out the
wet.
The eggs usually lie in the ground all winter.
[Illustration]
Just think of the locust eggs there are under our feet as we cross the
fields!
Millions and millions of little eggs are hidden in the ground.
Early in the next summer the little eggs hatch, and then tiny locusts
creep up out of the earth and go hopping about everywhere.
Most of the full-grown locusts die in the fall.
As you know, the young ones have no wings, and this is why there are so
few winged locusts early in the summer.
Some locusts make their holes in fence rails or in old stumps.
It is the locusts, or shorthorned grasshoppers, that sometimes come in
swarms that darken the sun.
There is nothing the Western farmer dreads so much as a swarm of
locusts.