Rear-Horses

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General Engelmann, of Illinois, has found by experience, that the best way to get rid of the graesloppers in a vineyard is to raise rear-horses there, which are also known as devil's horses, alias praying nuns, alias intelligence bugs, ailas devil's riding-horses, but the correct English name of which is " camel cricket." Fig. 1 gives a very good view of the sexes of this insect, h representing the male, which is of a brown color, and a the female, which is of a green color. The female has such short wings that she is incapable of flight; but the male flies as readily and as strongly as an ordinary grasshopper. The General's mode of colonizing this insect in his vineyard, is to collect the masses of eggs in the dead of the year and place them upon his grape vines. Fig. 3 will enable the reader to recognize these singular egg masses whenever he may happen to meet with them. Persons are very generally ignorant of their real nature, and on the principle that "everything that is unknown must be something hateful and destructive," are apt to cut them off and throw them into the fire. They should, under no circumstances, be destroyed. As a general rule camel crickets are only found in the central and southern parts of Missouri, in the southern part of Illinois, and ia other southerly regions. But Mr. D. B. Wier is domesticating them at Lacon, on the Illinois river; and on one occasion one of their egg masses was found as far north as Lee county. Northern Illinois. We are inclined to believe that, with a little care and attention they may be acclimated at points further north than tli.ese.—American Entomologist.

Scientific American Magazine Vol 21 Issue 12This article was published with the title “Rear-Horses” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 21 No. 12 (), p. 181
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican09181869-181

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