262 INSECT ARTIZANS AND THEIR WORK 



In our own day C. V. Riley, the late State 

 Entomologist, thus refers to the Seventeen-year 

 Cicada : " The general noise, on approaching the 

 infested woods, is a combination of that of a distant 

 threshing-machine and a distant frog-pond. That 

 which they make when disturbed mimics a nest 

 of young snakes or young birds under similar cir- 

 cumstances — a sort of scream. They can also 

 produce a chirp somewhat like that of a cricket and 

 a very loud, shrill screech prolonged for fifteen or 

 twenty seconds, and gradually increasing in force 

 and then decreasing." 



The order of insects (Orthoptera) which, next 

 to the Cicada, has been most celebrated for the 

 production of sounds contains the Crickets and 

 Grasshoppers ; and these produce their shrill cries 

 in quite another manner, the instrument being 

 more akin to the fiddle and bow. Yet even here 

 there is a great amount of variation in the method 

 of employing the same principle. In the three 

 families, Gryllidae (Crickets), Locustidse (not 

 Locusts), and Acridiidae (Grasshoppers and Locusts), 

 differences of structure necessitate differences in the 

 fiddles and bows. 



The song of the House Cricket (Gryllus domesticus) 

 is produced by the wing-covers (tegmina) . of the 

 male insect. On the under side is a file, and as the 

 pair are vibrated the edge of one scrapes the file 

 on the other and produces the shrill " crink-crink." 

 Bates speaks of a species of Wood Cricket he calls 

 Chlorocoelus tanand (more correctly found to be 



