I rarely see grasshoppers in my yard anymore, and this bothers me. These richly coloured magnificent specimens were a delight to find among the sweet potato leaves, plus the well-camouflaged green one. I wonder are the orange-brown ones pairs? It is another class of insects that appear to me to be in far lesser numbers than years past, although this is a subjective observation of mine. What’s going on in addition to pesticide usage? I read Rachel Carson’s ‘Silent Spring’ in the late ‘60’s, while still a boy, and she foretold what we have an ominous taste of these days.