The Hen salutes the egg which she has just laid with a song of gladness; she announces her maternal joys, to the whole neighbourhood. Even so does the Locust do in many cases. With her thin scraper, she celebrates the advent of her family. She says: “Non omnis moriar; I have buried underground the treasure of the future; I have entrusted to the incubation of the great hatcher a keg of germs which will take my place.” Everything on the site of the nest is put right in one brief spell of work. The mother then leaves the spot, refreshes herself after her exertions with a few mouthfuls of green stuff and prepares to begin again. The largest of the Acridians in our part of the country, the Grey Locust (Pachytylus cinerescens, Fabr.), rivals the African Locusts in size, without possessing their calamitous habits. He is peace-loving and temperate and above reproach where the fruits of the earth are concerned. From him we obtain a little information which is easily verified by observing the insect in captivity. The eggs are laid about the end of April, a few days after the pairing, which lasts some little while. The female is armed at the tip of the abdomen—as, in varying degrees, are the other Locust mothers—with four short excavators, arranged in pairs and shaped like a hooked finger-nail. In the upper pair, which are larger, these hooks are turned upwards; in the lower and smaller pair, they are turned downwards. They form a sort of claw and are hard and black at the point; also they are scooped out slightly, like a spoon, on their concave surface. These are the pick-axes, the trepans, the boring-tools. The mother bends her long abdomen perpendicularly to the line of the body. With her four trepans she bites into the soil, lifting the dry earth a little; then, with a very slow movement, she pushes down her abdomen, making no apparent effort, displaying no excitement that would reveal the difficulty of the task. The insect is motionless and contemplative. The boring-implement could not work more quietly if it were sinking into soft mould. It might all be happening in butter; and yet what the bore traverses is caked, unyielding earth. It would be interesting, if it were only possible, to see the perforating-tool, the four gimlets, at work. Unfortunately, things happen in the mysteries of the earth. No rubbish rises to the surface; nothing denotes the underground labour. Little by little the abdomen sinks softly in, as our finger would sink into a lump of soft clay. The four trepans must open the passage, crumbling the earth into dust which is thrust back sideways by the abdomen and packed as with a gardener’s dibble.