92 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 



acd erratic way. The Aptera are supposed to feed upon vegetable and animal refuse, and 

 can enduie loth heat ard cold, but require moisture, so that they occur most abundantly 

 in cellar?, under rubbish, in mosses, and other damp situations. 



The Orthoptera form one of the most important orders of insects, both as regards 

 the diversity of structure exhibited, the great size of many species, and the enormous 

 devastation often wrought by their innumerable swarms. Dr. Sharp occupies nearly one 

 hundred and fifty pages with his synopsis of the order, and his admirably written and 

 illustrated account of the various groups should awakon, in all who are fortunate enough 

 to read it, a lively interest in the insect world. He estimates that the order contains, at 

 the lowest figure, 10,000 species, and treats it as composed of eight families. Of these the 

 first is the Forficulic'aa, or earwigs; elongate insects, having the abdomen terminated by 

 a pair of clasper4ike instruments, often greatly developed. Many of the forms are wing- 

 less, and those provided with wings are able to completely fold them up and tuck them 

 under short wing covers, so that they have considerable resemblance to some beetles of 

 the family Staphylinitlse. In Canada earwigs are poorly represented, and the one little 

 species of Labia found in Ontario is but rarely met with. The family Hemimeridse con- 

 tains a few small, wingless, blind insects from equatorial Africa, interesting as occurring 

 on small mammals either as parasites or commensals. The Blattid?e, or cockroaches, are 

 both destructive and unpleasant creatures, although some forms are brightly coloured. 

 Canada is not much troubled with these creatures, although a few disagreeable species 

 have been introduced, but in warmer climates they are often veritable plagues. The 

 Mantidse, or praying insects, are wanting in our fauna, but in tropical and sub-tropical 

 regions the species are numerous and their bodies are often strangely developed ; some- 

 times by leaf-like expansions, serving to make them inconspicuous among the foliaae in^ 

 which they lurk. These developments of structure are even more marked in the Phas- 

 midfe — stick and leaf insects — as shown by the figures of various genera. 



The family Acridiidfe contains those very prolific and voracious vegetarians, the 

 locusts and grasshoppers. These breed so rapidly and appear in such enormous swarms 

 as to make less incredible, than it might at first appear, the author's statement, previously 

 quoted, as to the relative bulk of insects and other terrestrial animals. The migratory 

 locusts at times destroy all vegetation over large areas, and may thus produce famine and 

 disease. As Dr. Sharp says, " It is difficult for those who have not witnessed a serious 

 invasion to realize the magnitude of the event. Large swarms consist of an almost 

 incalculable number of individuals. A writer in Nature states that a flight of locusts 

 that passed over the Red Sea in November, 1889, was 2,000 square miles in extent, and 

 he estimates its weight at 42,850 millions of tons, each locust weighing one-sixteenth of an 

 ounce. A second similar, perhaps even larger, flight was seen passing in the same direc- 

 tion the next day." The Locustidse, or green grasshoppers, are more arboreal in their 

 habits, and often have the wings of a very leaf-like appearance. They are also more 

 musical, and capable of strong and sustained performances. The well known American 

 Katydids belong to this family. The last family, Gryllidai, contains the crickets, whose 

 concerts enliven the summer evenings. The fossorial, or mole crickets, have the front 

 legs most admirably adapted for burrowing. 



The treatment of the Neuroptera occupies an equal space and is no less interesting. 

 The first family, Mallophaga, contains the biting or bird lice, so troublesome to birds and 

 mammals. The Termitidaj, or white ants, are one of the most wonderful of all the groups of 

 insects, and the individuals are strangely modified to fit them for their duties in the 

 communities of which they are members. ' A table is given which shows that as many as 

 fifteen distinct forms may occur (as in Termeslucifugus), and many of these may co-exist 

 in the community, while others are only produced as necessity demands. The African 

 species are the most remarkable, T. lellicosus forming solid mounds as much as twenty 

 feet high. To sustain the population of these immense cqlonies, the queen becomes a 

 maivellous egg-producing machine. "Twenty cr thirty thousand times the bulk of a 

 labourer," she is unceasingly fed by a band of workers, and as unceasingly gives forth 

 eggs, to the number even of ''eighty thousand and upward in one day of twenty- four 



