another grasshopper, also common in La Plata (Rhomalea speciosa of
Thun-berg). This is an extremely elegant insect; the head and thorax
chocolate, with cream-coloured markings; the abdomen steel-blue or
purple, a colour I have not seen in any other insects of this family.
The fore wings have a protective colouring; the hind wings are bright
red. When at rest, with the red and purple tints concealed, it is only a
very pretty grasshopper, but the instant it takes wing it becomes the
fac-simile of a very common wasp of the genus Pepris. These wasps vary
greatly in size, some being as large as the hornet; they are solitary,
and feed on the honey of flowers and on fruit, and, besides being
furnished with stings like other wasps--though their sting is nok so
venomous as in other genera--they also, when angry, emit a most
abominable odour, and are thus doubly protected against their enemies.
Their excessive tameness, slow flight, and indolent motions serve to
show that they are not accustomed to be interfered with. All these
strong-smelling wasps have steel-blue or purple bodies, and bright red
wings. So exactly does the Rhomalea grasshopper mimic the Pepris when
flying, that I have been deceived scores of times. I have even seen it
on the leaves, and, after it has flown and settled once more, I have
gone to look at it again, to make sure that my eyes had not deceived me.
It is curious to see how this resemblance has reacted on and modified
the habits of the grasshopper. It is a great flyer, and far more aerial
in its habits than any other insect I am acquainted with in this family,
living always in trees, instead of on or near the surface of the ground.
It is abundant in orchards and plantations round Buenos Ayres, where its
long and peculiarly soft, breezy note may be heard all summer. If the
ancient Athenians possessed so charming an insect as this, their great
regard for the grasshopper was not strange: I only wish that the
"Athenians of South America," as my fellow-townsmen sometimes call
themselves in moments of exaltation, had a feeling of the samo kind--the