278 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [June, '09 



continuously until 4.23, when she left him and moved over 

 upon another leaf. He followed, trilled, and backed up in 

 front of her with tegmina raised. She reached under her 

 body and touched with her mouth the sperm sac, but did not 

 detach it. Then she went to work upon the male again. She 

 soon left him, however, and at 4.26 detached the sac and be- 

 gan to eat it. While doing this she was interrupted by the 

 male, who again sought her out, trilled and backed up under 

 her, forcing her to notice him. She started to again work 

 upon him, but stopped almost immediately and moved away, 

 the male following her and trilling. At 4.30, whether inten- 

 tionally or otherwise, she dropped to the bottom of the cage, 

 while the male mounted to the top of the branch and began 

 to clean his antennae and tarsi by passing them through his 

 mouth parts. A couple of minutes later the female assumed a 

 resting position upon a leaf near the bottom of the cage, and 

 began to clean her ovipositor. This ended my observations 

 on the pair for the day. 



The other pair ( $ nigricornis var. quadripunctatus and 9 

 nigricornis var. argentinns) remained comparatively quiet all 

 the afternoon. So far as could be observed they did not come 

 in contact with each other at all, and I heard the male trilling 

 but once during that time, I think. 



In making the observations recorded above, I did not see 

 what I would term true copulation simply the reception by 

 the female of the sperm sac from the male. Dr. Hancock * 

 speaks of a true union of the sexes, but makes no mention of 

 a sperm sac. Blatchley (see below) states that he observed 

 no intromittent organ of the male or "any union of the parts 



*The habits of the striped meadow cricket, O. fasciatus Fitch, Am. 

 Naturalist, January, 1905, Vol. XXXIX, pp. i-n. 



It should here be stated that the observations above recorded were 

 made and notes taken thereon before the writer had seen this admirable 

 paper by Dr. Hancock, or the notes by Prof. Blatchley on the mating 

 habits of the same species, as recorded in his Orthoptera of Indiana, 

 p. 452. The references to these articles were kindly furnished to me by 

 Mr. A. N. Caudell, through the courtesy of Dr. L. O. Howard, in a 

 letter from the latter, dated October 23, 1908. 



