THE KANSAS UNIVERSITY 

 SCIENCE BULLETIN. 



Vol. V, No. 18.J MARCH, 1910. [^xv.'no's 



OBSERVATIONS ON THE GRYLLID^ : III. NOTES ON 



THE CLASSIFICATION AND ON SOME HABITS 



OF CERTAIN CRICKETS. 



BY W. J. BAUMGARTNER. 



(Contribution from the Zoological Laboratory, No. 195.) 



Classification. 



IN the course of collecting material for some cytological 

 studies on the crickets, I was early confronted with the 

 question of what are the true species of Gryllus. The first 

 specimens collected I {2) called Gryllus assimilis, after care- 

 fully comparing them with the labeled specimens in the Uni- 

 versity of Kansas collection, and after reading such descriptions 

 as were then available in the library. Later I collected about 

 Chicago, 111., and Woods Hole, Mass. My attempts at classify 

 ing these specimens led me to the conclusion that the species 

 of Gryllus, the common larger field crickets, are not fixed but 

 grade into each other. I found that in all of these places there 

 were two groups with diflPerent breeding seasons — one that 

 passed the winter in the nymph stage, and another that passed 

 it in the egg. The former matures and breeds around Law- 

 rance, Kan., during June and early July, and the other during 

 the latter part of August and September. 



This question of the true species in Gryllus was frequently 

 discussed with my fellow student. Dr. F. E. Lutz, now of Cold 

 Spring Harbor, N. Y., during our study at the University of 

 Chicago. I am glad to confirm his recent publication (i^) in 

 which he says that the species of Gryllus as now named do not 

 differ in characters, "but merely in the degree of common 

 characters." My study has not been especially along the line 



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