716 FAMILY vni. GRYLLIDJE. THE CUICKETS. 



third note. This prelude is probably performed in limbering or otherwise 

 adjusting his organs, preparatory to performing the regular carol, which 

 is struck into in a few moments." 85 



Houghton (1904, 1909a) and Parrott and Fulton (1914) have 

 shown that 0. itigiicomis and not 0. iiircus is the tree cricket 

 that does so much damage by ovipositing in roAvs in raspberry 

 canes and that -iiirriis deposits the eggs singly in apple, plum, 

 elm and other trees, though sometimes singly in the raspberry 

 canes. The method of ovipositing by mvcus is thus described by 

 Parrott & Fulton: 



"The female selects a suitable spot on a tree or bush and prepares to 

 oviposit by first chewing a small hole in the bark, choosing the upper side 

 of a branch in preference to the lower side, and working with the head up- 

 permost when on a sloping or vertical surface. Upon the completion of 

 the cavity she then walks forward a little, arches her back so as to bring 

 the ovipositor about perpendicular to the branch and begins moving it up 

 and down until she strikes the hole. She then starts to drill by giving the 

 ovipositor quick thrusts and at the same time slowly turning it around by 

 twisting the abdomen 30 or 40 degrees to each side. As the ovipositor is 

 forced in it takes a more or less oblique course, according to the thickness 

 of the bark, so that the egg usually comes to lie nearly parallel to the sur- 

 face. It generally takes from six to seven minutes to force the ovipositor 

 to its base the first time, but in some cases it takes much longer, depend- 

 ing on the resistance of the bark. After the operation this organ is pulled 

 nearly out and drilled in again several times, each effort taking about one 

 and a half or two minutes. When the hole is sufficiently reamed out and 

 the ovipositor drilled in for the last time the female forces out a drop of 

 excrement and, by stretching out the tip of the abdomen, fastens it to the 

 bark just below the hole. The egg is then forced down and the ovipositor 

 is slowly withdrawn. The female pauses with only the tip remaining in 

 the hO'le and deposits some mucilaginous substance. She then removes the 

 ovipositor, moves a slight distance backward, seizes the drop of excrement 

 in her mouth and places it over the opening; then spends several minutes 

 packing it in and smoothing it out so that the wound is neatly capped. 

 The whole process of depositing an egg, from starting to drill until the 

 hole for the reception of the egg is sealed, may consume from twenty min- 

 utes to three-quarters of an hour. 



"In trees having a rather soft, fleshy bark, such as apple and plum, 

 niveus prefers to oviposit in fairly large branches from one to three inches 

 in diameter. The eggs may be placed in almost any area in the bark, but 

 a favorite location is in a lenticel where the initial drilling is more easily 

 accomplished. In bushes and trees in which the large branches have a 

 tough bark the eggs are commonly laid in the smaller branches in thick 

 places in the bark on each side of the base of a small twig or bud. In 

 raspberry canes, where the eggs are sometimes fairly common, oviposition 

 usually occurs in the fleshy area at the side of the bud in the axils of the 



S5 Other interesting accounts of the song of O. nn'cus are given by McNeil! (1891)1 

 Scudder (1893), Shull (1907) and Allard (1911.) 



