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Updated: May 8, 2025
To describe it, fancy to begin with a number of strange chirps, and that every few seconds, one of those cogged wheels and spring toys that you buy at fairs to delude people into the belief that their coats are being torn is passed rapidly down the back, with occasionally momentary interruption in the middle of its course, while between each scratch you hear a mew of a distant cat another cat purring loudly all the time, and any number of grasshoppers chirping to conclude with a running down of the most impetuous and noisy alarum, and then silence a silence almost painful by contrast until it begins again.
During the autumn, grasshoppers are very abundant, can be gathered by the bushel. At such a time, they dig a hole in the sand, heat stones in a fire near by, put some hot stones in the bottom of the hole, put on a layer of grasshoppers, then a layer of hot stones, and continue this, until they put bushels on to roast. There they are.
The multitudinous shrilling of the grasshoppers adds emphasis to the white heats of the air. Even the housefly seeks the shade and hums drowsily in complicated orbits about the upper part of the room, or, with too keen proboscis, destroys my last crumb of comfort, the post-prandial nap. My eyes open upon a world that dreams. The trees stand motionless.
Eventually we discovered that the sound was made by grasshoppers; but they were seen only to be lost, for I could not capture one, so excessively shy and cunning had the perpetual ringing of their own little tocsins made them. And presently I had to return to my muttons; and afterwards there was no opportunity of revisiting the spot to observe so singular a habit again and collect specimens.
The small species of both eat large quantities of insects, such as grasshoppers, locusts and beetles. The larger ones are the farmer's great protection against the meadow-mouse, the most destructive of all animals to farm crops. It tunnels under fields and eats the roots of grass, grain and potatoes, eats large amounts of grain and does even more damage by girdling young trees in orchards.
The drowsy, stagnant air was full of the monotonous noise inseparable from a summer night on the steppes; the grasshoppers chirruped incessantly; the quails called, and the young nightingales trilled languidly half a mile away in a ravine where a stream flowed and willows grew. The overseer had halted to ask the shepherds for a light for his pipe.
"All our changes and interruptions have put back the sewing so lately." "We ought not to have been idle so much," said Barbara. "We've been a family of grasshoppers all summer." "Well, the grasshopping has done you all good. I'm not sorry for it," said Mrs. Holabird. "Only we must have Delia for a week now, and be busy." "If Delia Waite didn't have to come to our table!" said Rosamond.
This primitive paper bag cooking yields a most excellent dish. Grasshoppers are relished, and are secured in the following manner: A clear grass spot is selected and several deep holes are dug in one end.
But Billina found the grasshopper hard and lifeless, and suspecting it was not good to eat she quickly dropped it instead of letting it slide down her throat. "I might have known better," she muttered to herself, "for where there is no grass there can be no live grasshoppers. This is probably one of the King's transformations."
If I catch Bobby Bobolink there he'll wish he had stayed in the rice fields, down South." Mr. Red-winged Blackbird smiled. And he told old Mr. Crow not to worry. "Bobby Bobolink won't touch the corn," he said. "During the first half of the summer he lives on such things as caterpillars and grasshoppers, with a bit of grass-seed now and then." Old Mr. Crow replied that he was glad to know that.
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