INTRODUCTION. 
The Orthoptera form a group of insects whose members touch 
upon man's interests in a variety of ways. Some are among the 
scourges of the earth, devastating wide areas, reducing the inhabi- 
tants to penury and starvation and leaving in their wake misery 
and pestilence. Others of obnoxious character enter dwellings 
in search of food and shelter, and though acting in part as scav- 
engers destroy large quantities of food-stuffs and defile the 
premises. Wherever he wanders, whether on some nameless 
peak of the farthest ranges or in the less inviting vacant lot next 
door, by seabeach, grainfield, alkali desert, or mangrove swamp, 
on city pavements or yielding footpath to the spring, these little 
creatures are his companions; whether he sleep in hut or palace 
or beneath the stars their voices soothe his rest. 
The beauty and variety of tints worn by some species stir our 
admiration; our curiosity is aroused by the singularity of form 
in others; protective coloring and resemblance lay a wonder- 
working mantle of invisibility on many. Their songs are every- 
where associated with life, often joyous but more frequently in 
the minor-keyed moods at the passing of the year. Science 
questions them on problems of distribution, adaptation, phy- 
logeny, and inheritance. Altogether, they affect human life in 
many ways — economically, scientifically, educationally, — and 
their aesthetic interest is not the least in importance, as the 
many references in literature testify. 
Our New England species have received their share of atten- 
tion, both literary and scientific, in times past, but much still 
remains to be learned. In the literary field, Oliver Wendell 
Holmes's poem "To a Katydid" is probably best known; it is 
characteristically Holmesian in its treatment, and decidedly more 
literary than scientific. To the songs of Crickets numerous 
allusions are made in the writings of Hawthorne, Holmes, Long- 
fellow, Thoreau, Elizabeth Akers Allen, and others, the best of 
all being the poem by Harriet McEwen Kimball beginning 
"Pipe, little minstrels of the waning year." 
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