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The Grasshopper Band

diversity of forms, it is the prodigious had been laid, he found it buried to the variety of coloring. Their mantles gleam depth of three inches, and under it four with the richest hues in Nature. Their beetles, which seemed to be the agents in sheen can only be compared to that of this singular interment. jewels and metals. The purest gold and He continued his experiment, and in. silver, the sapphire and the emerald, fifty days four beetles had buried, in a gleam on their wings and corsages; their small space of earth, four frogs, three tints mingle and encounter, or impercep- small birds, two fishes, one mole, and two tibly shade into each other. Some groups grasshoppers, besides the entrails of a are remarkable for the richness of their fish, and two morsels of the lungs of an garments. One variety owes its French ox, all evidently intended to supply food name of "millionaires" to its metallic for their future young. lustre; others gleam like precious stones, The green Grasshopper holds high rank. and are used instead of them in India and This is one of the largest and most con