126 Generation of Sounds by Canadian Insects. 



and tensely stretched. The apparatus as described by I)e Geer, 

 may be seen in the second volume of the Pictorial Museum of 

 Animated Natnre, page 340. Fig. 3389. 



Many varieties of the grass-hopper and locust may be captured 

 in the gardens and fields, and of a considerable size ; some of them 

 are destitute of wings, but all are capable of making their own 

 peculiar noises. In a case of South American insects once in my 

 possession there is an immense brown bodied locust, whose ex- 

 tended wings measure 7 inches, the length of the body being 4 

 inches. It is an example of Acrydium Latreillei, the upper wings 

 are green and the lower deep red, bordered with brown, the legs 

 green.* 



The noise of the flight of an immense swarm of these locusts in 

 South America has been compared by Mr. Darwin to a strong 

 breeze passing through the rigging of a ship. The noise occa- 

 sioned by whole armies of locusts, by the mere act of mastication 

 alone, when incalculable millions of powerful jaws are in action at 

 the same time, has been likened to the crackling of a flame of fire 

 driven before the wind. 



The Canadian student will be well repaid, by collecting all 

 the varieties of the locusts and grass-hoppers, which abound on 

 the Island of Montreal. 



As belonging to the same family as the locusts and grass hop- 

 pers, may be mentioned the Canadian crickets, the males of which 

 call their females by making a chirping noise, produced as in many 

 of the grass-hoppers by rubbing the inner part of the wing-covers 

 like a talc-like mirror, against each other with rapidity, and 

 sometimes by a similar alternate motion of the hind thighs against 

 the wings and wing covers, the thighs acting as part of the bow 

 of a violin. The last I suspect is the common practice with crick- 

 ets, whose song is heard with so much regularity in the night 

 time. The number of chirps uttered I have counted with my 

 watch, and find it to be 76 per minute, the standard of the healthy 

 pulse, but if any noise be made, the chirps increase to 100, very 

 seldom more. The field cricket Gryllus compestris, is of a black 

 colour and may be heard in the fields at all periods of the day, 

 where they may be found of all sizes hopping about. The song 

 of the house cricket, 67. doniesticus, is to be heard in every well 



* This magnificent case, containing about 250 specimens of exotic and 

 other insects, many of great rarity and beauty, I presented to the Lite- 

 rary and Philosophical Society of St. Andrew's. 



