190 



THE CAUSES WHICH PROPAGATE 



noon, and its music is not interrupted like that o£ the common 

 field-cricket, but more sustained, sonorous, and clear. The 

 notes are repeated every second, and can be heard distinctly 

 at the distance of a mile. In appearance, it has the look of 

 a gigantic house-cricket. The Gryllus jnjjens, a loud-singing 

 Andalusian cricket, warliles melodiously as a thrush at twilight 

 and daybreak among the lower hills of Arragon and Catalonia, 

 his bird-like gush cheating the fowler in pursuit of game. But 

 others, again, are thought not to be capable of singing, as the 

 kinds of Xi/a, of which one, a small digging species akin to the 

 mole-crickets, inhabits the sandy river-banks in Southern Europe, 

 or the members of the genus Trigonidiiim, that extend to the 

 Mauritius and Java. One of the latter, erroneously indicated by 

 the Rev. J. A. Marshall as confined to Corsica and the neigh- 

 bouring islands, is described by him as a beautiful little cricket, 

 shining black, with red hind femora. 



Dr. Scudder has made some observations on the crickets in the 

 neighbourhood of Boston, New England. There the Spotted 

 Cricket [Nemobius vittatus) appears simultaneously with the 

 Black Cricket [Gryllus niger). The chirping of the two insects 

 is very similar, " Crrri ; " but that of the former may be better 

 expressed by " R-r-r-u,^^ with the French pronunciation. One of 

 these insects was once observed while singing to its mate. At 

 first the music was mild, and frequently broken ; afterwards it 

 grew impetuous, forcible, and more prolonged ; then it decreased 

 in volume and extent, until it became quite soft and feeble. 

 At this point the male began to approach the female, uttering 

 a series of twittering chirps ; the female ran away, and the male, 

 after a short chase, returned to its old haunt, singing with the 

 same vigour, but with frequent pauses. 



GRESSORIA. 



The leaping genera have their respective prototypes in the 

 walking and running kinds, with which they present more or 

 less perfect continuity, but the latter generally want a musical 

 apparatus, or have it poorly developed. Mr. Wood Mason has, 

 however, noticed the probable existence of such an organ in a 

 female of the Phasmidce, or Stick Insects [Pterinoxylus diformis of 

 Serville), in connection with which he mentions a mirror, or 



