on the fertile valleys in rustling
hordes, and ate everything in sight--grass, grains, vegetables, and
bushes. They ate and ate and ate until they had eaten up fifty million
dollars' worth of food, and the poor farmer could hear nothing but the
sound of the chewing of those ever-swinging jaws. Now, be off, little
girl, or my pails won't be clean."

"Oh, please, sir, just tell me how they jump and breathe."

"Dear, dear, see this fellow!" He had wet a little grain of maple sugar,
and a tiny meadow grasshopper which had alighted on his knee was pushing
the sweet stuff into its mouth with both fore legs. "Child, you must
never," said the old man, savagely, "push your food in that way."

"Please, sir," answered Betty, "I never do, because I eat with my fork
and my knife. Please, sir, are they happy when they jump?"

"Looks like a horse, doesn't it?" asked the old man. "It's made for
jumping. Think of all the training it takes to make a jumper of your
brother at school. Well, this chap can jump ten times as far. It's born
with a better jump than the longest-legged boy you ever saw. But the
locust might get its head cut off when jumping if it weren't for this
little saddle that covers the soft part of the neck. Mr. Locust can't
always look before he leaps, as a little girl can, and the knife edge of
a blade of grass would cut its head right off if it weren't for this
saddle. See, here are its long leaping-legs, and on the back edge of
these are some spines to keep it from slipping, and the feet are padded
with several soft little cushions that keep it from chin-chopping itself
to pieces when it lands after a long jump. And here, my dear, are little
rest-legs just behind the front legs. With these Mr. Locust hangs on to
a blade of grass when tired--a fine idea, child; every little boy and
girl ought to have some rest-legs like the locust. And the locust has
some extra eyes, too."

Ben Gile was going so fast now that Betty was listening to him, mouth
open, as he pointed with a blade of grass to one thing after another.

"You see, the locust has two big eyes, and there in the middle of the
forehead it has three little eyes, and with five eyes there isn't much
it can't see. And here on the body are two tiny shining oval windows.
These are ear-laps, and that, my dear, is the way it hears. And upon the
sides of the body (the thorax--that is, just the chest) and his abdomen
are tiny holes. The air enters through these, and that