From Michael Drake
The apparently enigmatic reference embedded in a hacker’s text mentioned in Feedback – “And what is fear, but a marbled grasshopper?” – may have a simple explanation (2 April). “A marbled grasshopper” is as succinct description as I have ever come across of the New Zealand weta (Hemideina) a very large and ferocious-looking insect of the grasshopper family.
To wake up and find an adult specimen calmly clinging to the headboard of your bed in the middle of the night will give almost anyone a good shot of adrenalin. What is fear, indeed, but a marbled grasshopper?
Taupo, New Zealand
