THE CRICKETS— Family GRYLLIDAE. 
"What is any man's discourse to me if I am not sensible of something in it as 
steady and cheery as the creak of crickets? " — Thoreau. 
The Gryllidae or Crickets agree with the Tettigoniidae or 
Locustarians in possessing long, delicately tapering antennae, 
auditory organs on the front tibiae, and stridulatory apparatus 
on the wing-covers of the male. They differ in having typically 
but three joints in the tarsi, an awl-like or needle-like ovipositor, 
and wing-covers flat above and bent sharply downward at the 
sides of the body. 
Like the Long-horned Grasshoppers and Katydids, to which 
they are more closely related than to the Locusts, these are 
essentially nocturnal insects, but are also active to a considerable 
extent by day. Three chief groups may be distinguished accord- 
ing to habits: terrestrial, ground, or Field-crickets; arboreal, 
climbing, or Tree-crickets; and burrowing or Mole-crickets. 
About twenty species inhabit New England, of which two or three 
are adventive. Some are among the commonest insects we have, 
widely distributed, almost ubiquitous; others are scarce and very 
local, inhabiting areas of special character and limited size. 
Crickets are less strictly vegetarian than Locusts, freely eating 
animal substances, especially other insects; the Tree-crickets 
particularly feed largely upon aphids. Only about four of our 
species are sufficiently abundant and obnoxious in habits to be 
regarded as economically injurious, namely: the large Field- 
cricket (Gryllus assimilis), the smaller Striped Grass-cricket 
(Nemohius fasciatus), the Snowy and the Dusky Tree-crickets 
(Oecanthus niveus and Oe. nigricornis) . 
In their life history. Crickets agree with the majority of the 
Orthoptera in hatching from the egg early in the season, develop- 
ing to maturity during the summer, pairing, depositing eggs and 
dying in the autumn. Exceptions are found in occasional hiber- 
nating nymphs of Gryllus; and probably also in the Mole-crick- 
ets, which are believed to live more than one year. 
The eggs of the Field-crickets, so far as observed, are thrust 
into the soil by means of the slender, awl-hke ovipositor; those 
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