INSECT VAIIIETY. 153 



ment exerted over females and pupae ; althoug-h it would appear 

 in some groups of Aeridiidse as generally with the more inert 

 pupse, that colour gradation is implicated in these phenomena, 

 eyes as well as cavities of hearing being well developed, espe- 

 cially in diurnae, while jealousy is common. For this reason is 

 it likewise that orthopterous flocks and wind-borne clouds are 

 often so heterogeneous in character. 



Male Saltatoria break into music when in proximity to a 

 female even differing in sj^ecies ; and a note or antennal caress 

 from an admiring male evokes a mixed chorus. But it is when 

 the season of reproduction and contest for the sex comes on that 

 grasshoppers especially are mutually incited to give their stridor 

 its utmost modulation. And this they effect by placing them- 

 selves at an angle with the auditory cavities of the female, and 

 shortening and jerking their femoral play ; so that the notation 

 of the rival challenge differs both in character and gamiit from 

 the new impassioned grating of the pairing note. Similar is the 

 stimulus that incites singing birds at the time of amour to pour 

 on the woodland enchanting strains, or inflorescence horticultur- 

 ally deprived of sexual character, to lavish sweeter colour and 

 perfume. Nor is the mere challenge note wholly intuitive, for 

 neither the alar nor femoral organs of stridulation in Orthoptera 

 attain efficiency with the assumption of the perfect state ; and 

 the grasshoppers on emerging from the nympha may be observed 

 resting ^vith a femur lowered, as if listening to the notes around 

 them, and learning their own proper and elaborate harmony. 



LOCUSTINA (leaf-crickets) . 



No one who, towards the winter solstice, when days shorten 

 and grow chilly, wanders along our lanes, where berries pink and 

 black, hiding amid red and yellow leaves, announce the year's de- 

 cline and completion of Natiire's annual travail, can be ignorant 

 of the music of the leaf- crickets. The hedges, with dried grass- 

 stems and floating seeds of fantastic shape, no longer the abode 

 of variegated flowers melodious with winged forms, are become 

 the harbour of a new race. Little societies of the Cinereous 

 Cricket early in the noon begin a melancholy and puzzling 

 "crink-erink^'' that echoes from we know not where among the ivy- 

 tangle, and then as the clear penumbra of evening draws on the 



