srr.FAMii.y vm. KXKOI'TKUIN.K. 743 



to Nebraska and south and southwest to southern Florida, Mis- 

 sissippi and Texas. About Baltimore, the type locality, Uhler 

 found it very common on Cnild'uits during September and Octo- 

 ber. Brniier mentions it (1893a) as occurring only occasionally 

 in southeastern Nebraska. Southern specimens have been often 

 erroneously recorded as 0. yri/1 lodes. Of the egg- lay ing and song 

 habits of this cricket Riley (1881, 62) wrote as follows: 



"In December, 1877, I watched a female of 0. saltator ovipositing in 

 the end of a dead and rather soft twig of the soft maple at Kirkwood. 

 Missouri. The twig had been primed and the bark was somewhat gnawed 

 by the cricket and the eggs thrust in irregularly from the end and from 

 the sides. Both wood and pith were crammed with eggs, but all longitud- 

 inally inserted. The favorite nidus of the species is, however, the soft and 

 somewhat corky, rough bark of the trunk and older branches of the Ameri- 

 can elm, the eggs being thrust in singly or in small batches, either longi- 

 tudinally with, or very slightly obliquely from, the axis of trunk or 

 branch. The female is very intent in the act, working her abdomen de- 

 liberately from side to side during the perforation. 



"The stridulation of this cricket is a rather soft and musical piping of 

 not quite half a second's duration, with from four to six trills, but so rapid 

 that they are lost in the distance. The key is very high, but varies in 

 different individuals and according to moisture and temperature. It most 

 resembles the vibrating touch of the finger on the rim of an ordinary tum- 

 bler when three-fourths filled with water repeated at intervals of from 

 two to four per second, and it may be very well likened to the piping of a 

 young chick and of some tree frogs. As the species is very common in the 

 southwest its chirp is everywhere heard and is so distinctive that when 

 once studied it is never lost amid the louder racket of the katydids and 

 other night choristers. It is frequently heard during the day time in 

 cloudy or damp weather, and I have heard it at St. Louis the first days of 

 November after a slight frost. 



"The courting of the sexes is amusing. They face each other and play 

 with their antenna? for the best part of an hour or more than an hour. 

 The female is, otherwise, pretty quiet, but the male continually mouths the 

 twig or the bark upon which the courting is being done, and plays his palpi 

 at a great rate, very stealthily approaching nearer to his mate meanwhile. 

 At last the antennal fencing ceases and those of the female bend back and 

 then the male approaches until their heads touch. He then deliberately 

 turns round, elevates the elytra and slips his abdomen under the female, 

 who virtually mounts and assists him, his elytra overshadowing her head." 



352. OROCHARIS GRTLLODES (Pallas), 1772, 1C. 



Elongate, slender. Pale reddish-brown; lateral lobes of pronotum 

 with a shining black stripe occupying their upper third and often passing 

 back as a narrow line along the humeral vein of tegmina; abdomen black 

 above. Pronotum as long as wide, feebly but obviously widening from apex 

 to base, its disk concave along the median line. Tegmina surpassing ab- 

 domen 4 6 mm., exceeded by wings 3 4 mm. Hind femora very slender, 

 two-thirds the length of body. Ovipositor longer than hind femora, very 



