GRASSHOPPER (French Sauterelle, Italian Grillo, German Grashüpfer, Heuschrecke, Swedish Gräshoppa), a collective term applied to certain orthopterous insects belonging to the families Locustidae and Acrydiidae, according to the now generally received classificatory views. They are especially remarkable for their saltatory powers, due to the great development of the hind legs, which are much longer than the others and have stout and powerful thighs, and also for their stridulation, which is not always an attribute with them of the male only. The distinctions between the two families may be briefly stated as follows the Locustidae have very long thread-like antennae, and four-jointed tarsi; the Acrydiidae have short stout antennae, and three-jointed tarsi. As the term “grasshopper” is almost synonymous with Locust, the subject will be more extensively treated under the latter heading (7. v.). Under both “grasshopper” and “locust” are included members of both families above-noticed, but the majority belong to the Acrydiidae in both cases. In Britain the term is chiefly applicable to the large green grasshopper {Locusta viridissima) common in most parts of the south of England, and to smaller and more obscure species of the genera Stenobotkrus, Gomphocerus, and Tettix, the latter remarkable for the great extension of the pronotum, which often reaches beyond the extremity of the body. All are vegetable feeders, and, as in all orthopterous insects, have an incomplete metamorphosis, so that their destructive powers are continuous from the moment of emergence from the egg till death. The notorious migratory locust {Pachytylus migratorrus) may be considered only an exaggerated grasshopper, and the too-famous Rocky Mountain locust {Caloptenus spretus) is still more ...

חגב, Lev. xi, 22; Num. xiii, 33; 2 Chron. vii, 13; Eccles. xii, 5; Isaiah xl, 22; 2 Esdras iv, 24; Wisdom xvi, 9; Eccles. xliii, 17. Bochart supposes that this species of the locust has its name from the Arabic verb _hajaba_, “to veil,” because, when they fly, as they often do, in great swarms, they eclipse even the light of the sun. “But I presume,” says Parkhurst, “this circumstance is not peculiar to any particular kind of locust: I should rather, therefore, think it denotes the _cucullated_ species, so denominated by naturalists from the _cucullus_, “cowl” or “hood,” with which they are furnished, and which distinguishes them from the other kinds. In Scheuchzer may be seen several of this sort; and it will appear that this species nearly resemble our grasshopper.” Our translators render the Hebrew word _locust_ in the prayer of Solomon at the dedication of the temple, 2 Chron. vii, 13, and with propriety. But it is rendered _grasshopper_, in Eccles. xii, 5, where Solomon, describing the infelicities of old age, says, “The grasshopper shall be a burden.” “To this insect,” says Dr. Smith, “the preacher compares a dry, shrunk, shrivelled, crumpling, craggy old man; his backbone sticking out, his knees projecting forward, his arms backward, his head downward, and the apophyses or bunching parts of the bones in general enlarged. And from this exact likeness, without all doubt, arose the fable of Tithonus, who, living to extreme old age, was at last turned into a grasshopper.” Dr. Hodgson, referring it to the custom of eating locusts, supposes it to imply that luxurious gratification will become insipid; and Bishop Reynolds, that the lightest pressure of so small a creature shall be uncomfortable to the aged, as not being able to bear ...