I knew what I wanted to know: the attack had taken place up above, early in the morning, while the Cicada was asleep; and the plunging of the poor wretch, dissected alive, had made assailant and assailed fall in a bundle to the ground. Since then I have repeatedly had occasion to witness similar carnage.

I have even seen the Grasshopper--the height of audacity, this--dart in pursuit of a Cicada in mad flight. Even so does the Sparrow-hawk pursue the Swallow in the sky. But the bird of prey here is inferior to the insect. It attacks a weaker than itself. The Grasshopper, on the other hand, assaults a colossus, much larger than herself and stronger; and nevertheless the result of the unequal fight is not in doubt. The Grasshopper rarely fails with the sharp pliers of her powerful jaws to disembowel her capture, which, being unprovided with weapons, confines itself to crying out and kicking.

The main thing is to retain one's hold of the prize, which is not difficult in somnolent darkness. Any Cicada encountered by the fierce Locustid on her nocturnal rounds is bound to die a lamentable death. This explains those sudden agonized notes which grate through the woods at late, unseasonable hours, when the cymbals have long been silent. The murderess in her suit of apple-green has pounced on some sleeping Cicada.

My boarders' menu is settled: I will feed them on Cicadae. They take such a liking to this fare that, in two or three weeks, the floor of the cage is a knacker's yard strewn with heads and empty thoraces, with torn-off wings and disjointed legs. The belly alone disappears almost entirely. This is the tit-bit, not very substantial, but extremely tasty, it would seem. Here, in fact, in the insect's crop, the syrup is accumulated, the sugary sap which the Cicada's gimlet taps from the tender bark. Is it because of this dainty that the prey's abdomen is preferred to any other morsel? It is quite possible.

I do, in fact, with a view to varying the diet, decide to serve up some very sweet fruits, slices of pear, grape-bits, bits of melon. All this meets with delighted appreciation. The Green Grasshopper resembles the English: she dotes on underdone meat seasoned with jelly. This perhaps is why, on catching the Cicada, she first rips up his paunch, which supplies a mixture of flesh and preserves.

To eat Cicadae and sugar is not possible in every part of the country. In the north, where she abounds, the Green Grasshopper would not find the dish which attracts her so strongly here. She must have other resources. To convince myself of this, I give her Anoxiae (A. pilosa, Fab.), the summer equivalent of the spring Cockchafer. The Beetle is accepted without hesitation. Nothing is left of him but the wing-cases, head and legs. The result is the same with the magnificent plump Pine Cockchafer (Melolontha fullo, Lin.), a sumptuous morsel which I find next day eviscerated by my gang of knackers.

These examples teach us enough. They tell us that the Grasshopper is an inveterate consumer of insects, especially of those which are not protected by too hard a cuirass; they are evidence of tastes which are highly carnivorous, but not exclusively so, like those of the Praying Mantis, who refuses everything except game. The butcher of the Cicadae is able to modify an excessively heating diet with vegetable fare. After meat and blood, sugary fruit-pulp; sometimes even, for lack of anything better, a little green stuff.

Nevertheless, cannibalism is prevalent. True, I never witness in my Grasshopper-cages the savagery which is so common in the Praying Mantis, who harpoons her rivals and devours her lovers; but, if some weakling succumb, the survivors hardly ever fail to profit by his carcass as they would in the case of any ordinary prey. With no scarcity of provisions as an excuse, they feast upon their defunct companion. For the rest, all the sabre-bearing clan display, in varying degrees, a propensity for filling their bellies with their maimed comrades.

In other respects, the Grasshoppers live together very peacefully in my cages. No serious strife ever takes place among them, nothing beyond a little rivalry in the matter of food. I hand in a piece of pear. A Grasshopper alights on it at once. Jealously she kicks away any one trying to bite at the delicious morsel. Selfishness reigns everywhere. When she has eaten her fill, she makes way for another, who in her turn becomes intolerant. One after the other, all the inmates of the menagerie come and refresh themselves. After cramming their crops, they scratch the soles of their feet a little with their mandibles, polish up their forehead and eyes with a leg moistened with spittle and then, hanging to the trellis-work or lying on the sand in a posture of contemplation, blissfully they digest and slumber most of the day, especially during the hottest part of it.

It is in the evening, after sunset, that the troop becomes lively. By nine o'clock the animation is at its height. With sudden rushes they clamber to the top of the dome, to descend as hurriedly and climb up once more. They come and go tumultuously, run and hop around the circular track and, without stopping, nibble at the good things on the way.

The males are stridulating by themselves, here and there, teasing the passing fair with their antennae. The future mothers stroll about gravely, with their sabre half-raised. The agitation and feverish excitement means that the great business of pairing is at hand. The fact will escape no practised eye.

It is also what I particularly wish to observe. My wish is satisfied, but not fully, for the late hours at which events take place did not allow me to witness the final act of the wedding. It is late at night or early in the morning that things happen.

The little that I see is confined to interminable preludes. Standing face to face, with foreheads almost touching, the lovers feel and sound each other for a long time with their limp antennae. They suggest two fencers crossing and recrossing harmless foils. From time to time, the male stridulates a little, gives a few short strokes of the bow and then falls silent, feeling perhaps too much overcome to continue. Eleven o'clock strikes; and the declaration is not yet over. Very regretfully, but conquered by sleepiness, I quit the couple.

Next morning, early, the female carries, hanging at the bottom of her ovipositor, a queer bladder-like arrangement, an opaline capsule, the size of a large pea and roughly subdivided into a small number of egg-shaped vesicles. When the insect walks, the thing scrapes along the ground and becomes dirty with sticky grains of sand. The Grasshopper then makes a banquet off this fertilizing capsule, drains it slowly of its contents, and devours it bit by bit; for a long time she chews and rechews the gummy morsel and ends by swallowing it all down. In less than half a day, the milky burden has disappeared, consumed with zest down to the last atom.

This inconceivable banquet must be imported, one would think, from another planet, so far removed is it from earthly habits. What a singular race are the Locustidae, one of the oldest in the animal kingdom on dry land and, like the Scolopendra and the Cephalopod, acting as a belated representative of the manners of antiquity!