The locust plague and its suppression / by Æneas Munro.

  • Munro, Aeneas.
Date:
[1899]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The locust plague and its suppression / by Æneas Munro. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    for me to here take up that part of the anatomy of the creature which I postponed under,head “Genital Organs.” The female possesses an apparatus for digging or drilling her “nest” and “laying her eggs” in a particular kind of order therein. She places them there in a uniform order, and not helter-skelter, like a bird in the ordinary nest. At the very extremity of the abdomen are two pairs of horny valves or hooks (Fig- 5) HI* ^)j each pair placed back to back, with their points directed outwards and arranged so that all four hooks can be brought with their points close together, and in this way a sharp pointed lever is formed which can be turned around, evolved, and forked. With this apparatus so adjusted, she commences to penetrate the hardish ground which she has selected. She bores or drills a small hole in the earth in a few minutes. Then she separates the hooks, which are hollowed out so as Fig. 5.—Showing the tip of the abdomen. I. and II. illustrates that of the male, and III. and IV. that of the female.—After Riley. to form shovels. By moving the body, she can in her own special and distinctive fashion either throw up the earth thus loosened or make the earth so loosened harder round the hole; or, more probably, the hole is drilled by a mixture of both methods. By carrying on this process successfully and continuously she contrives to make a deep hole—3 to 4 inches—in the ground. 103. Implements used.—To enable her to carry on this to the requisite depth, she is provided with a structur^ or formation of the abdomen by which the latter can be enormously extended (Fig. 7, c). The abdomen, as we have seen, consists of a number of horny seg- ments which are joined together by an elastic sort of membrane, a construction which enables the animal to extend its body several inches beyond its normal extent. It can be also increased in thickness, for the superior encasement is larger and different from the inferior. The
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