MORSE: ORTHOPTERA OF NEW ENGLAND. 399 
Color: body and tegmina shining black to dark brown, the 
feet and legs paler, sometimes very slightly mottled, and some- 
times with one or two pale spots on inner side of hind femora 
near hind knees. Abdomen usually dark brown beneath, some- 
times paling to buffy brown at base. The nymphs are usually 
nearly uniform dark brown. Palpi dark brown, the second joint 
sometimes bone- white. 
Measurements. 
Body Tegmina Hind femora Ovipositor Antenna 
Male 5.4-6 3.4-3.7 3-3.5 8 
Female 6-7 2.7-3.2 i 3.5-4 2.5-3 8 mm. 
This is our smallest Ground-cricket and almost our smallest 
orthopteran. It is insignificant in size, inconspicuous in color, 
and retiring in habits. Its human interest is chiefly in its associ- 
ation with a pecuHar type of habitat the charm of which lies in 
the unexpected novelty of virgin wildness and suggestion of the 
far Northland. 
It lives in cold, saturated peat-bogs among sphagnum mosses, 
sedges, and rushes interspersed with thickets of leather-leaf, 
sheep-laurel, and rhodora. Here it skips nimbly about or hides 
away from the intruder in the recesses of the sphagnum. When 
the frosts have yellowed the tamarack leaves, turned the pitcher- 
plants and sundews carmine, and made a crimson-tufted carpet 
of the spongy sphagnum, one may still find them there, shining 
black or dark-brown midgets, living in a realm of color and mys- 
tery known only to those who love the wilderness and seek it 
out. It is rarely found in more open meadows, grassy, but with 
a substratum of sphagnum. The colonies are local, often limited 
to a few square rods in extent. The agile, wide-awake little 
creatures, even though numerous, are by no means easy to cap- 
ture; the best method is to place the net on the ground and drive 
the Crickets upon it. 
Their song, like themselves, is tiny; a feeble continuous trilling, 
sounding faint and far away even though the little creatures are 
at one's feet. 
This little Cricket is not uncommon locally in the vicinity of 
Boston, where I have taken it at West Andover, Dover, Natick, 
and Wellesley. On a bog at Orono, Me., I found the young 
August 5, a few nymphs and numerous adults August 30; in 
