Page:Insects - Their Ways and Means of Living.djvu/72

 a natural and contented life, feeding on grape leaves and on ripe grapes, obtaining the pulp of the latter by gnawing holes through the skin. He was always sedate, always composed, his motions always slow and deliberate. In walking he carefully lifted each foot and brought the leg forward with a steady movement to the new position,



where the foot was carefully set down again. Only in the act of jumping did he ever make a quick movement of any sort. But his preparations for the leap were as calm and unhurried as his other acts: pointing the head upward, dipping the abdomen slowly downward, the two long hind legs bending up in a sharp inverted V on each side of the body, he would lead one to think he was deliberately preparing to sit down on a tack; but, all at once, a catch seems to be released somewhere as he suddenly springs upward into the leaves overhead at which he had taken such long and careful aim.

For a long time the aristocratic prisoner uttered no sound, but at last one evening he repeated three times a