Common insects that live on grasses and cereal crops, most notable for their chirping song and their long hind legs, allowing them to leap great distances. Grasshoppers are closely related to crickets (and therefore also presumably to the 'neekerbreekers' of Midgewater Marshes). Grasshoppers are not explicitly described as living in Middle-earth, but we can conclude that they must have done so, especially as Gollum's ability to make great jumps from a standing start is compared at one point to the leaping of a grasshopper.