142 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



THE CRICKETS OF ONTARIO. 



BY E. M. WALKER, B.A., M.B., TORONTO. 



The crickets, or Gryllidae, like the other families of/Orthoptera, have 

 received so little attention from Canadian entomolo/ists that vety few 

 species have been reported from the country, and mo,st of these few records 

 are of little value, as they were made at a time when the family had been 

 little studied, and the species were ill defined. Much has been done of 

 late, however, by American entomologists, notably Scudder and Blatchley, 

 to unravel these difficulties, although the family is still a very diflicult one 

 to deal with, and much patience and close observation is necessary in 

 order to separate the species satisfactorily. As the writer has paid a good 

 deal of attention to the Orthoptera for the past ten years, a number of 

 species of crickets have been added to the Ontario fauna, and the following 

 notes upon these species may serve as a guide to the further and more 

 complete investigation of the species of Gryllidfe in this part of the country. 



Briefly, the Gryllidse may be characterized as follows : They are 

 jumping Orthoptera, in which the body is more or less depressed. The 

 wing-covers lie flat upon the dorsal surface of the body, with the outer part 

 bent abruptly downwards at the sides. The tarsi are 3-jointed, without 

 pads between them, and the fore coxas are longer than broad. The antennae 

 are usually long and filiform ; the hearing organ, when present, is situated 

 at the base of the fore tlbis, and the shrilling organ of the male is near 

 the base of the tegmen, and is longer and broader than in the Locustidse. 

 The ovipositor when exposed is long and spear-like, and apparently 

 consists of two lateral pieces, grooved internally. Each of these pieces, 

 however, is made up ofytwo separate parts closely fitted together. A tube 

 is thus formed, down )/^hich the eggs are passed during oviposition. 



Three subfamilies of GryllidiB are represented in Ontario, the Gryl. 

 lotalpinte or mole ^trickets, the Gryllinre or ground crickets, and the 

 TKcanthinae or tretf" crickets. These subfamilies may be separated by the 

 following table, ^hich, with the succeeding ones, has been taken from 

 Blatchley's exc^lent report on the Orthoptera of Indiana (27th .\nn. Rep. 

 Dep. Geol. R^fes. Ind., 1902), such changes having been made as were 

 necessary to.4dapt them to the Ontario fauna. I am also indebted to Mr. 

 Blatchley (dr the loan of specimens, and for his kind assistance to me in 

 the deteriinnation of difficult species. 



Ma), I904'/ 



