You have read in the Bible of the
fearful damage they are able to cause to the trees and various crops.
It is seldom that locusts visit this country, happily, for there is
not a greater insect scourge in existence. Our green grasshopper is
also related to the cricket, so merrily noisy in dwelling-houses.
Crickets are difficult to get rid of when they have thoroughly
established themselves in a house. Like many noisy persons, crickets
like to hear nobody louder than themselves; and some one relates that
a woman who had tried in vain every method she could think of to
banish them from her house, at last got rid of them by the noise made
by drums and trumpets, which she had procured to entertain her guests
at a wedding. It is said, but you need not believe the story, that
they instantly forsook the house, and the woman heard of them no more.
Possibly some half dozen more women in the house would have had the
same effect, without the musical instruments! What do you say to that
idea, May? "That is too bad of you, papa, but you know you are only
joking."

[Illustration: _a, b, c._ Leg, wing-cover, and wing of Grasshopper,
magnified.]

Here is a large pond, and from this bank we can look down into the
water. There are some yellow water-lilies with their broad expanded
leaves. I have noticed that the blossoms are often attacked by the
larvae of some two-winged flies. These flies lay their eggs within the
petals, "lily-cradled" literally; the eggs hatch and the larvae eat the
cradle. I do not know more of these flies: I have often meant to trace
their history, but have somehow forgotten to do so. Do you see that
pike basking on the top of the water; how still and motionless he
lies. He is a good-sized fish, at least I should say he was four
pounds weight. "I wish we could catch him," said Willy. We have no
tackle with us; besides, when pike are sunning themselves in that way
on the top of the water, they are seldom inclined to take a bait.
"What is the largest pike," asked Jack, "you ever saw caught?" The
largest I ever saw alive was caught in the canal about five years ago;
it weighed twenty-one pounds, and was really a splendid fish. What
voracious fish they are; they will often take young ducks, water-hens
and coots, and will sometimes try to swallow a fish much too large for
their throats. It is said that a pike once seized the head of a swan
as she was feeding under water, and gorged so much of it as killed
them both. T