192 PROC. ENT. SOC. WASH., VOL. 24, NO. 7-8, OCT. -NOV., 1922 



The Gryllidae of the field are also abundantly mentioned by 

 both Old World and American poets. A sample of the latter is: 



"The cricket to the frog's basoon 



His shrillest time is keeping; 

 The sickle of yon setting moon 

 The mcadow-rr.ist is reaping." 



Whittier. 



The genus Oecanthus is clearly recognizable in Keats's lines: 



"Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft 

 The red-breast whistles from the garden-croft." 



To Autumn. 



Even more specific are the passages occurring in more recent 

 poets: 



"Pale tree-cricket with his bell 

 Ringing ceaselessly and well, 

 Sounding silver to the brass 

 Of his cousin in the grass." 



Bliss Carmen. 



and Madison Cawein has positively identified the genus in these 

 few lines: 



"I see thee quaintly 

 Beneath the leaf; thy shell-shaped winglets faintly 



(As thin as spangle 

 Of cobweb rain) held up at airy angle." 



The Leaf Cricket. 



The same author has furnished the only lines so far discovered, 

 referring to Gryllotalpa: 



"And in the grass-grown ruts where stirs 

 The harmless snake mole-crickets sound 

 Their fairy dulcimers." 



An Orthopterous family strangely missing in poetry is the 

 Blattidae, in view of the abundance of the roaches throughout 

 the world. It seems possible that among the English poets the 

 term "beetle" may in some cases refer to these insects, as the 

 oriental roach is known in Britain as the "black beetle" and 

 thus we have in Shakespeare: 



"Weaving spiders, come not here; 

 Hence, you long-legged spinners, hence: 

 Beetles black, approach not near." 



Midsummer Night's Dream. 



The earwigs represent the Dermaptera in poetry, and Thomas 

 Hood with his usual accuracy alludes to the care with which the 

 common ear-wig of Europe watches over its eggs: 



