The song of the grasshopper, known by everyone, is a monotonous "zic-zic-zic," which can be heard during the day in grassy places. It is on account of this song that the name of Cigale is sometimes given, though wrongly, to the great green grasshopper. As we have already said in speaking of the Cigale, it is the green grasshopper which La Fontaine had in view in his fable of _La Cigale et la Fourmi_, for all the plates which ornament the ancient editions of the fables of this author represent a grasshopper, and not a Cigale. Grasshoppers are spread over the whole surface of the earth, but are to be met with chiefly in South America, which contains nearly three-fourths of the species known. The European species, on the contrary, are few. Their habits resemble those of the other herbivorous Orthoptera. They live in meadows, on trees, devouring the leaves and stalks of plants; but they are never found in such great numbers as to cause damage at all to be compared to that caused by the locust. They appear in the month of July and disappear at the beginning of the cold weather. Towards the end of summer their song is heard in the meadows and wheat fields. The females, summoned by the males, are not long in coupling and laying their eggs, which do not hatch until the following spring, in the ground. After four months the larvæ change into pupæ, which already show rudimentary wings, and which by a fifth month pass into the perfect state. The Great Green Grasshopper (_Locusta viridissima_) is very common in Europe. It remains during the day on trees, and in the evening disports itself in the fields. [Illustration: Fig. 307.--Decticus verrucivorus.] The _Decticus verrucivorus_ (Fig. 307) is a shorter and more thick-set species, whose distinctive feature is a very broad head. Its colour is grey of various shades, and it is to be heard singing during the day in fields of ripe wheat. The name comes from the use made of it by the peasants in Sweden and Germany as a cure for warts. "The peasants," says Charles de Geer, "make these locusts bite the warts which they often have on their hands, and the liquid which at the same time flows from the insect's mouth into the wound causes the warts to dry up and disappear. It is for this reason they have given them the name of Wart-bit or Wart-biter." The _Phaneropteræ_ and the _Copiphores_ are exotic Locusts. The _Ephippigeræ_ are small species whose thorax, which is very convex, resembles a saddle. One often meets in the environs of Paris the Vine Ephippiger (_Ephippigera vitium_), which is greenish, with four brown stripes on its head. In this species the wing cases, or elytra, are almost obsolete, and the wings are reduced to mere arched scales, whose friction produces a stridulation or screeching noise. The females are provided with a similar apparatus, so that they perform duets.[78]