404 ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW-YORK 



GBAPE. LEAVES. 



plate ii, may almost always be found on grape vines, in July, 

 August and September, and numbers of them frequently occur 

 upon the same vine. See Harris's Treatise, p. 22. 



131. White flower-cricket, CEcanthus niveus, Degeer. COrthoptera. 

 Achetidae.) 



Mounted among and feeding upon the leaves of the vine, in 

 August, a slim narrow cricket about 0.70 long, of a clear white 

 color throughout. 



The genus (Ecanthus to which this insect pertains, was founded 

 by Serville upon a species common in the south of Europe, 

 named pelluc ens by Scopoli, for specimens of which, with many 

 other European Orthoptera, I am indebted to M. Brisoutde Barne- 

 ville. Congeneric with this European insect we have three spe- 

 cies in the United States, which are but little knowm, although 

 they were named and described by Degeer nearly a century ago, 

 and two of them are so common in the State of New- York that 

 their song is often heard upon the vines and bushes in our yards, 

 night after night, through the latter part of summer. And as 

 they are on several accounts an interesting and singular kind of 

 cricket, I here present the investigations which I have made 

 relating to them. 



The European and our American flower crickets all bear a 

 striking resemblance to each other, both in their external appear- 

 ance and their habits, showing this to be one of the most natural 

 genera in the family to which they pertain. They also differ 

 very much from all the other crickets. They are mostly of a 

 clear white color instead of black or dull brown which are the 

 prevailing colors among the insects of this group. Their form 

 also is long and narrow, particularly in the females, which have 

 the wings wrapped more closely around the body than they are 

 in the males. Their hind legs also are long and slender, resem- 

 bling those of a grasshopper more than a cricket; and their 

 hind feet have four joints, all the feet in other crickets having 

 three joints only. Brulle, who subjected the European species to 

 a rigid examination, and was the first to detect the number of 

 joints in its feet, and some other important points in its structure, 

 states (Hist. Nat. des Ins. vol. ix, p. 174") that the thorax of this 



