step created a myth of a mouse-eating grasshopper in his book "'marvels of insect life" (1915), where he wrote, "in the british museum (natural history) there is a specimen of one of the largest known locusts, which was received from a missionary in the congo free state a few years ago, who had taken it in the act of feasting upon a mouse it had caught... the locust in question does not confine its attention to mice; large spiders, beetles and other insects, and probably small nestling birds serve it equally for food." in fact no grasshopper is known to feed on mice.