The Insect Folk Part 21

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 larvae 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 larvae.

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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 gra.s.shopper.

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 gra.s.shopper.

And its wings, how gauzy and dainty! Its wing covers are not so stiff as those of the gra.s.shopper. They look almost like flying wings, they are so delicate.

See, they open, and fasten themselves open, like the wing covers of the gra.s.shopper; and when they are at rest they overlap like the wings of the gra.s.shopper.

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.

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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 gla.s.s, or like fine isingla.s.s.

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.

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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.

THE CRICKET-LIKE GRa.s.sHOPPERS

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Now what strange-looking little creature are you?

John says it looks like a gra.s.shopper, only it has no wings and its body is not that of a gra.s.shopper.

May says it looks like a cricket, only it has the long legs of a gra.s.shopper.

It is called the cricket-like gra.s.shopper, and it is partly like a cricket, as you see, and partly like a gra.s.shopper.

It is a funny little fellow that lives around in dark corners, usually in the woods.

Do see those long, spiny legs!

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How he _can_ jump.

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 antennae are longer than anything else about him. I should think they would be in his way.