The Animal Kingdom may be divided into creatures which one can feed and
creatures which one cannot feed. Animals which one cannot feed are
nearly always unsatisfactory; and the grasshopper is no exception.
Anyone who has tried feeding a grasshopper will agree with me.
Yet he is one of the most interesting of British creatures. _The
Encyclopaedia Britannica_ is as terse and simple as ever about him.
"Grasshoppers," it says, "are specially remarkable for their saltatory
powers, due to the great development of the hind legs; and also for
their stridulation, which is not always an attribute of the male only."
To translate, grasshoppers have a habit of hopping ("saltatory powers")
and chirping ("stridulation").
It is commonly supposed that the grasshopper stridulates by rubbing his
back legs together; but this is not the case. For one thing I have tried
it myself and failed to make any kind of noise; and for another, after
exhaustive observations, I have established the fact that, though he
does move his back legs every time he stridulates, _his back legs do not
touch each other_.
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