Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1920-07-17

Geographic Society Writer
Says 1t Can Sail I, 900 Miles
Before the Wind.

once more the ravenouS grasshop-
per is wreakfng devastation upon
western fields. and the plague is be-
coming so destructive in parts of
Iexas that federal aid is being en-
ployed to check it. newspaper dis
patches state
Writing to the National Geographic
Society. David Fairchild describes
this fascinating, if ruthless. creature
as follows:
The young king grasshopper is
probably twenty days old and its
wings have not developed. but it can
jump hundred times it's length
whereas man can scarcely cover three
times his length at a leap. When its
wings grow and its internal air sacs
fill with air it can sail away for miles
One representative of this great fam
lily can sail for thousand miles be-
fore the wind. and they go in such
numbers that they make a cloud 1000
square miles in extent
Jaws Like Hay Chopper
Its great front lip hides a pair of
Jaws as effective as hay chopper
and it has an appetite as voracious as
that of a hippopotamus This vora-
ciousr ess and these jaws are what
have made several of its relatives
the plague of mankind. They null
tiply in such numbers as to battle
all calculation. and every living green
thing for thousands of square miles
disappears down their throats. leav-
ing the country they infest desolate.
The great famine of Egypt, men,
toned in the book of Exodus: the
erasshopper years of Kansas which
ruined thousands of families on our
plains. and more recent devastations
in Argentina and South Africa are
examples OF the tremendous effects
which the migratory locusts have had
upon the happiness of mankind.
las this young grasshopper stands
looking so inquiringly at one with his
varicolored eyes, each of which is COM
posed of hundreds of facets, | cannot
help thinking that he represents crea-
ture quite as fascinating and actually
more dangerous than the East African
monsters OF our school Biographies.
Two Months in BabyhOOd.
"A baby creature. scarcely two weeks
and yet with two mouths behind 1.-TWO
bright green baby skins cast off,
Imagine looking forward, this
ba by creature does, to the day when the
pads its back shall have grown so
long and parchment-like that it can
leave its hopping terrestrial existence
and sail away across the fields. Until
that time. however. it must be content
with its sixty springy legs, pushing it's
way among the blades of grass, tasting
likes and hiding from its enemies when
mounting time cores round.
"A young chick finds itself shut in
side the eggshell and must work it's way
out alone. but the young grasshoppers
when they hatch out find themselves
the whole nestful-shut in a hardened
case in the ground made by their
mother, and il takes a half dozen OF
them working together to dislodge the
lid which shuts them in.
All Legs and Mouth Mt Matching.
When the young grasshopper energies
from the egg it is very small indeed-a
wingless. helpless little creature, all legs
and mouth.
ut passes through successive ages, or
stages, as they are called. each one of
which is separated from the other by
moult or casting of its outer shell.
These mouths take place at fixed
periods, and S the insect finds itself
restrained by its firm, inelastic skele-
ton, longitudinal rent occurs along
the back, and the insect, soft and
dangerously helpless, struggles out
of the old skin fnclosed in new but
delicate cuticle, which takes some
time to harden and color up.
Whether this creature has per-
sonality or not may be forever ex-
tremeIy difficult for humans to de-
eide. Its eyes. that look like cows
eyes, really cast a thousand images
on a special kind of brain. so differ
ent from our own that We cannot