BAUMGARTNER: COPULATION IN GRYLLID^. 327 



separate jars. Then slowly turn the glass with the male over 

 that with the female. In a comparatively short time the male 

 will begin his chirping and one can see the whole series of 

 acts of courting and copulation. After observing the process 

 one can hardly prevent a smile when he reads Loeb's {H) 

 quotation of Yersin's experiment of having a pair of decapi- 

 tated crickets copulate, and then see the admonition : "Of 

 course it was necessary to place the male 07i the female." One 

 would hope that the observations in the experiment itself, and 

 any conclusions drawn therefrom, may be more to the point 

 than is the self-evident suggestion added at the end. 



DESCRIPTION. 



A free translation of Lespes's paper of 1855 would describe 

 fairly correctly and with a good deal of detail the various steps 

 in the process of copulation. He notes at the beginning that 

 there is no true copulation, but that the male simply deposits 

 a spermatophore into the posterior end of the abdomen of the 

 female ; and that this process may be repeated many times. 



The Courting. 



Lespes (11) studied first the field cricket. Catching speci- 

 mens of both sexes, he got them accustomed to their new sur- 

 roundings and then brought the two together. "The male 

 soon began to chirp, and to move around the female. Ap- 

 proaching nearer and continuing his chirping he turned his 

 abdomen, carried very low, toward the head of the female. 

 She remained quiet for ten minutes, not appearing to notice 

 the maneuvers of her mate; then she moved forward a little 

 and began to caress his abdomen with her mouth parts. Pres- 

 ently she mounted partly on his back; and he, stopping the 

 chirping, glided back under her. The female vulva now rested 

 above the end of the male abdomen." 



This description of the courting is fairly exact. The caress- 

 ing by the female is not essential or even usual. Sometimes the 

 female hardly stops feeding during the whole process, simply 

 allowing the male to slide under her. When the male ap- 

 proaches the female, or when she approaches him, his chirp 

 becomes much softer and less shrill. On some occasions if the 

 female did not yield after a certain amount of chirping the 

 male became angry and fought his mate. 



