120 BRITISH ORTHOPTERA. 



and flexible : they bear a variety of sense organs, and 

 probably act the part of " posterior antennae." 



As in the Locustodea the hind legs are usually 

 employed in jumping, and well some species are able 

 to use them ; the mid and fore legs are simple walking 

 legs, except in two families, in which, as already stated, 

 they are changed into implements for digging. Each 

 fore leg possesses a pair of tympana, or " ears.' : The 

 tarsi have three segments, the first being long, the 

 second very short, the third bearing the claws without 

 pad or membrane betw r een them. 



It is scarcely necessary to state that the faculty of 

 " singing ' is well developed, and our four species are 

 adepts at the art, but other members of the Gryllodea 

 leave them far behind. To produce the sound one 

 elytron has a file on its surface, while the other has a 

 sharp edge on its margin. When the elytra are rapidly 

 vibrated the sharp edge acting on the file produces the 

 " musical ' sound. 



Crickets lay eggs without an egg- case of any kind, 

 and the young resemble the adults somewhat closely, 

 there being, as with the rest of the Orthoptera, but 

 little post-embryonic development. They pass through 

 a. considerable number of ecdyses (possibly as many as 

 a dozen) before becoming imagines. 



CockerelP mentions a couple of fossil Grylloids from 

 the Oolite in Britain. Woods f states that Gryllidae 

 occur in the Lias and in the Olio'ocene amber. 



o 



Popular names have been bestoived upon each of 

 our four crickets ; but in this case the reason is 

 probably not so much to be found in the fact that 

 they are well known, as that they are sufficiently 

 distinct from one another to make a common name 

 possible. So little resemblance in fact is there between 

 them that an identification table is scarcely necessary. 

 The following artificial one is, however, given :- 



* "Fossil British Insects" ('Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus./ vol. xlix, No. 2119, 

 p. 470). 



t 'Palaeontology/ p. 335. 



