376 NATURE SKETCHES IN TEMPERATE AMERICA 



Grasshoppers have other resources in obtaining water. I 

 have often seen such species as Tetrix apply their mouths 

 directly to the damp earth in hot weather and suck up the 

 water till their thirst was satisfied. Other species derive 

 moisture from biting into the stems and leaves of succulent 

 vegetation. 



The Mole Cricket 



Under date of August first, I find recorded in my diary the 

 following notes: Within the last few days, especially around the 

 noon hours, the cicada has been practising his long-drawn-out 

 notes in the trees, prognosticating the advent of August. 

 So, too, the oblong-wing katytlid's z-i-p, often three times 

 repeated, is now beginning to be heard in the evening, in the 

 low herbage and shrubbery along the waysides. The crickets 

 also join the fiddlers' concert, so that at dusk is heard a ' 

 grand, shrilling accompaniment, taken up just as the bird 

 nmsic has quieted for the day. Each of these sounds is quite 

 distinctive and no one can mistake the low g-r-ii, g-r-ii, of 

 the mole cricket. He is a perfect ventriloquist, throwing his 

 notes out from his underground home in a way that makes it 

 almost impossil)lo to locate him. 



Scudder says, "Our common mole cricket usually begins its 

 daily chirp at about four o'clock in the afternoon, but stridu- 

 lates most actively at about dusk. On a cloudy day, however, 

 it may be heard as early as two or three o'clock; this 

 recognition of the weather is rather remarkable in a burrowing 

 insect, and the more so as it does not appear to come to the 

 surface to stridulate, but remains in its liurrow, usually an 

 inch below the surface of the ground. Its chirp is a guttural 

 sort of sound, like g-r-ii or g-r-e-ii, repeated in a trill indefinitely, 

 but seldom for more than two or three minutes, and often for 

 less at a time. It is pitched at two octaves above middle C, 

 and the notes are usually repeated at the rate of about 130 or 

 135 per minute, sometimes, when many are singing, as rapidly 

 as 150 per minute. Often when it first begins to chirp, it 

 gives a single prolonged trill of more slowly repeated notes, 

 when the composite character of the chirp is much more readily 

 detected, and afterwards is quiet for a long time. When 



