Scudder.] 234 [December 23, 



think it is without meaning that the crickets often Uve in company,* 

 that they sing both in concert and during day and night, and are the 

 closer attendants upon man; their stridulating organ, too, seems much 

 more comjilicated and more extensive, and the pitch of their song is 

 higher; that of the Acrydii again is lowest of all. 



The eggs of Gryllides are laid either singly in the ground, in irreg- 

 ular clusters in subteri-anean passages, or uniformly, in a single row, 

 in the pith of twigs; those of Locustarite are never laid singly, but 

 either in the pith of plants, in regular clusters in the ground, or in 

 regular rows on stems of plants; those of Acrydii are always laid in 

 clusters, rudely regular, in the ground. 



Lastly, the close resemblance between the hind legs of Locustaria 

 and Acrydii shows that these famihes cannot be widely separated. 



The non-saltatorial families present fewer difficulties. The wide 

 and acknowledged separation of the Forficulari^ from all other Or- 

 thoptera, proves that it cannot intervene between any of the famihes, 

 aud must go to the bottom of the scale. 



The Blattariae are the nearest aUies of the Forficularise, on account 

 of then- flattened shape, the form of the prothorax, etc. From 

 the similarity also of their upper and under wings, their habits of 

 concealment and nocturnal disposition, and their early appearance 

 upon the earth in geological time, they must undoubtedly be ranked 

 next above the Forficulariaj. 



The specialization of their anterior legs marks the higher structure 

 of the Mantides, but they show their affinity to the Blattarias, and 

 their inferiority to the Phasmida, in their flattened abdomen, the 

 tendency of the prothorax to become broad and flat, the structure of 

 the external genital organs, the position of the head and the exclu- 

 sion of the eggs in a single cluster, enclosed in an ootheca. 



The relationship of the Phasmida to the saltatorial Orthoptera is 

 also shown in the cylindrical body, and, to some degree, in the struc- 

 ture of the external genital organs. 



1 It will naturally be objected to this that the Gryllides keep company beneath, 

 or upon the ground, and are not given to flight ; and that many Acrydii migrate 

 high in the air, in immense swarms. As a whole, however, the swift and controlled 

 flight of crickets is of a superior nature to that of Acrydii, which only use their 

 wings as a parachute, to give greater elTect to their leaps, or, at best, beat the air 

 until they raise themselves sufficiently to be borne along by aerial currents; and 

 the company they keep is only the result of their immense numbers and the instinct 

 which leads each one to seek elsewhere the food which its own devastations have 

 made so scarce. Furthermore, there are some Tittigideaus which, at least to a cer- 

 tain extent, inhabit the water. 



