Page:Insects - Their Ways and Means of Living.djvu/32

 The entomologist who plans to investigate the lives of grasshoppers finds it easier to begin his studies the year before; instead of sifting the earth to find the eggs from which the young insects are hatched in the spring, he observes the mature insects in the fall and secures a supply of eggs freshly laid by the females, either in the field or in cages properly equipped for them. In the laboratory then he can closely watch the hatching and observe with accuracy the details of the emergence. So, let us reverse the calendar and take note of what the mature grasshoppers of last season's crop are doing in August and September.

First, however, it is necessary to know just what insect is a grasshopper, or what insect we designate by the name; for, unfortunately, names do not always signify the same thing in different countries, nor is the same name always applied to the same thing in different parts of the same country. It happens to be thus with the term "grasshopper." In most other countries they call grasshoppers "locusts," or rather, the truth is that we in the United States call locusts "grasshoppers," for we must, of course, concede priority to Old World usage. When you read of a "plague of locusts," therefore, you must understand "grasshoppers." But a swarm of "seventeen-year locusts" means quite another insect, neither locust nor grasshopper—correctly, a cicada. All this mix-up of names and many other misfits in our popular natural history parlance we