INSECT VAIUETY. 149 



CHAPTER IV. 



INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC CONSIDERED AS A MATERIAL AGENT IN 

 REPRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION, 



STRIDULATION OF THE ORTHOPTERA. 



The battles of Orthoptera indicate that prevailing angry andjealous 

 temperament, which in Longicorn coleoptera we see take prece- 

 dence of fear in determining a capacity for crepitation, if not in 

 postulating a higher development of the organs of stridulation. 



With regard to the three groups of leaping Orthoptera, the 

 male is heard to stridulate by the vibration of its abridged fore- 

 wings, termed from their office and coriaceous consistence hind- 

 wing covers or semi-elytra. But this musical vibration is 

 variously performed according to the group to which the musician 

 belongs. Crickets and leaf-crickets (Plate III., Fig. 3) sing by 

 raising their wing-covers more or less and rubbing them together, 

 producing in this way a continuous and lively trill, such as the 

 " Cree-cree " of the house-cricket and grinding of the Great 

 Green Leaf-cricket. The grasshopper or locust raises its hind legs, 

 doubles together the femur and tibia, and then moves the bent legs 

 briskly up and down in various ways over its semi-elytra, which are 

 previously slightly raised, producing thereby a broken harmonious 

 rattle (Plate II., Fig. 3). That this is the case any one may 

 convince themselves when a seasonable opportunity occurs of lying 

 on the grass and watching these insects sing over the meadow 

 lands, waste places, and swamps they enliven and populate. 



The Greeks were not ignorant how the grasshoppers mur- 

 mured; and when the Swedish Prime Minister wrote his 

 " Memoires pour Servir,^^ we find him fully acquainted with 

 the mode of performance of grasshoppers and leaf-crickets, for 

 he goes a step further, and says the friction cannot take place 

 between the membranes of the leaf-cricket^s wings (semi-elytra). 



