Even then the work is terribly hard. How it must labour, the poor little thing, how it must persevere with its throbbing head and writhing loins, before it can clear a passage for itself! The wee mite’s efforts show us plainly that the journey to the light of day is an enormous undertaking, in which the greater number would die but for the help of the exit-tunnel, the mother’s work. When the tiny insect reaches the surface at last, it rests for a moment to recover from all that fatigue. Then suddenly the blister swells and throbs, and the temporary jacket splits. The rags are pushed back by the hind-legs, which are the last to be stripped. The thing is done: the creature is free, pale in colouring as yet, but possessing its final form as a larva. Immediately the hind-legs, hitherto stretched in a straight line, fall into the correct position. The legs fold under the great thighs, and the spring is ready to work. It works, Little Locust makes his entrance into the world, and hops for the first time. I offer him a bit of lettuce the size of my fingernail. He refuses it. Before taking nourishment he must first mature and grow in the sun. IV THEIR FINAL CHANGE I have just beheld a stirring sight: the last change of a Locust, the full-grown insect emerging from his larval skin. It is magnificent. The object of my enthusiasm is the Grey Locust, the giant who is so common on the vines at vintage-time, in September. On account of his size—he is as long as my finger—he is easier to observe than any other of his tribe. The event took place in one of my cages. The fat, ungraceful larva, a rough sketch of the perfect insect, is usually pale green; but some are blue-green, dirty yellow, red-brown, or even ashen-grey, like the grey of the full-grown Locust. The hind-legs, which are as powerful as those of mature age, have a great haunch striped with red and a long shank shaped like a two-edged saw. The wing-cases are at present two skimpy, triangular pinions, of which the free ends stand up like pointed gables. These two coat-tails, of which the material seems to have been clipped short with ridiculous meanness, just cover the creature’s nakedness at the small of the back, and shelter two lean strips, the germs of the wings. In brief, the sumptuous slender sails of the near future are at present sheer rags, of such meagre size as to be grotesque. From these miserable envelopes there will come a marvel of stately elegance.