With the purchase thus obtained the insect rises a little and reaches the wire gauze, the equivalent of the twig which would be chosen for the site of the transformation in the open fields.  It holds to this with the four anterior limbs.  Then the tip of the abdomen is finally liberated, and suddenly, shaken by the final struggle, the empty skin falls to the ground.

This fall is interesting, and reminds me of the persistence with which the empty husk of the Cigale braves the winds of winter, without falling from its supporting twig.  The transfiguration of the locust takes place very much as does that of the Cigale.  How is it then that the acridian trusts to a hold so easily broken?

The talons of the skin hold firmly so long as the labour of escape continues, although one would expect it to shake the firmest grip; yet they yield at the slightest shock when the labour is terminated.  There is evidently a condition of highly unstable equilibrium; showing once more with what delicate precision the insect escapes from its sheath.

For want of a better term I said “escape.”  But the word is ill chosen; for it implies a certain amount of violence, and no violence must be employed, on account of the instability of equilibrium already mentioned.  If the insect, shaken by a sudden effort, were to lose its hold, it would be all up with it.  It would slowly shrivel on the spot; or at best its wings, unable to expand, would remain as miserable scraps of tissue.  The locust does not tear itself away from its sheath; it delicately insinuates itself out of it—­I had almost said flows.  It is as though it were expelled by a gentle pressure.

Let us return to the wings and elytra, which have made no apparent progress since their emergence from their sheaths.  They are still mere stumps, with fine longitudinal seams; almost like little ropes’-ends.  Their expansion, which will occupy more than three hours, is reserved for the end, when the insect is completely moulted and in its normal position.

We have just seen the insect turn head uppermost.  This reversal causes the wings and elytra to fall into their natural position.  Extremely flexible, and yielding to their own weight, they had previously drooped backwards with their free extremities pointing towards the head of the insect as it hung reversed.

Now, still by reason of their own weight, their position is rectified and they point in the normal direction.  They are no longer curved like the petals of a flower; they no longer point the wrong way; but they retain the same miserable aspect.

In its perfect state the wing is like a fan.  A radiating bundle of strong nervures runs through it in the direction of its length and forms the framework of the fan, which is readily furled and unfurled.  The intervals are crossed by innumerable cross-nervures of slighter substance, which make of the whole a network of rectangular meshes.  The elytrum, which is heavier and much less extensive, repeats this structure.