448 



REPORT OF STATE GEOLOGIST. 



tered, in a monotonous, melancholy tone, with a sliglit pause be- 

 tween. The children regard the cricket as no votary of the temper- 

 ance cause; they understand its song to consist of the words treat, 

 — treat — treat — treat, which words, slowly uttered, do so closely re- 

 semble its notes that they will at once recall them to the recollection 

 of almost every reader. And the song is thus continued without the 

 slightest variation and without any cessation, I think, the whole 

 night through. I, however, have sometimes heard it at the first 

 commencement of its evening serenade uttering three syllables re- 

 sembling the words treat, treat, tivo; treat, treat, tivo — as though the 

 songster was supplicating a libation for his voiceless mate as well 



as himself — a longer pause following each 

 third note. This prelude is probably per- 

 formed in limbering or otherwise adjusting 

 his organs, preparatory to performing the 

 regular carol, which is struck into in a few 

 moments." 



The females do much harm by ovipositing 

 in the tender canes or shoots of various cul- 

 tivated fruits, as the raspberry, blackberry, 

 grape, plum, peach, etc.; no less than 321 

 eggs, by actual count, having been found in 

 a raspberry cane 22 inches in length. So 

 partial is it to the stems of raspberry and 

 blackberry as receptacles for its eggs that in 

 some localities scarcely a cane escapes with- 

 out being more or less damaged. The eggs 

 are laid in autumn, and at first the injury is 

 shown only by a slight roughness of the 

 bark, but afterwards the cane or branch fre- 

 quently dies above the puncture, or is so 

 much injured as to be broken off by the first 

 high wind. If the injured and broken canes 

 containing the eggs be collected and burned 

 in early spring the number of insects for 

 that season will be materially lessened. 

 Professor Bruner, loc. cit., has written of its habits of oviposition 

 in other plants as follows: "In addition to pultivated fruits the 

 snowy tree cricket also deposits its eggs in the stems of a large va- 

 riety of other plants and trees — the main requirements being a soft 

 fibre and pithy interior to the twigs selected. Among the trees the 

 white willow suffers most. I have seen hedges of this tree so com- 



Fig. 116. Eggsof Tree Cricket 

 in raspberry cane. 



(a) Cane, showing puncture. 



(6) Cane split to show eggs. 

 Egg enlarged. 

 Cap of egg enlarged. 

 (After Riley.) 



(c) 

 (d) 



