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tion that I bad had that my discovery was an original discovery. I then wrote a 

 similar description to the inclosed printed slip, and sent a copy to Townend Glover, 

 one to Dr. Fitch, and one to Professor Tenney. and asked a criticism from each. I 

 did not get a response from either. Commissioner Watts responded by saying that I 

 was mistaken in supposing that the grasshopper laid eggs and then changed to -a 

 cricket. He then gave me the version which I already had in Mr. Tenneys' book. I 

 replied by showing how he had mistaken my statement. That ended that correspond- 

 ence. Some three years ago I got hold of our State Entomologist's report and read it 

 with a good deal of interest. I then took the liberty of rehearsing my discovery 

 as in this communication, and was told in response that I was mistaken in my deduc- 

 tions, saying that it was not possible for the cricket to change to a flying grasshop- 

 per, but that tue common grasshopper might. I had made no deductions to be mis- 

 taken in. I had simply stated what I had seen. My feeling was that if he was a 

 gentleman he had a queer way of showing it. Our correspondence closed. If it is 

 impertinent for me to try to get a discovery that I have made in natural history 

 before the world, I am unwittingly and unintentiouallj' guilty. Hoping that you 

 will tiud nothing ofiensive in this communication, I will subscribe myself with kind 

 regards. — [Archibald Stone, Binghamton, N. Y., August 27, 1888. 



Reply. — I am sorry to have to tell you that you have certainly been deceived. You 

 may have found a cricket which had crawled inside a cast skin of a grasshopper, but 

 for the one insect to pass into the other and back again is utterly impossible. You 

 will soon be convinced of tliis if you will confine one of the insects in a jar or breed- 

 ing-cage and watch it closely, and see that no other insect has access to the jar. 

 This must be, I think, the way in which you were misled. In watching those in 

 the burrow out of doors and not confined, it was a very easy matter for the insects 

 to get mixed up. Crickets and grasshoppers belong to two entirely distinct families, 

 and so you will at once see the fallacy of supposing one to proceed from the other. 

 In regard to the imagos of crickets, they mate, in spite of their rear stylets, which 

 you will find if you observe them closely. 



The young grasshopper has a sort of a general resemblance to a cricket, and after 

 it hatches from the egg it molts periodically, each time the wings becoming more 

 marked until the final molt leaves it with fully developed wings. The specimen 

 will be found to be in a weak condition after each molt, especially the last one. So 

 it is just possible that you have made a mistake in the identification of crickets. The 

 specimens which you observed and accepted as crickets may have been the larv;e of 

 the grasshoppers, in which case j'ou have followed the stages correctly. I shall 

 "be pleased to receive specimens from you both of the crickets and the grasshoppers, 

 which will at once settle the question. — [August 30, 1888.] 



[Printed slip inclosed by Mr. Stone. J 



GRASSHOPPERS ANT) CRICKETS — SEVERAL STAGES OF INSECT LIFE. 



BiNGHAMTOX, AlKJUSt 25. 



To the Editor of the Republican : 



I gave notice in the daily Eepublican on the 10th of July last that in the next ten 

 days all the crickets would change to flying grasshoppers. I will now give notice 

 that all the common grasshoppers will change in the next three weeks to crickets. 

 That the reader will not be confused, I will say that the common grasshopper hatches 

 out of very small eggs about the 1st of June. They eat and grow until about the 

 *^nd of the first week in September, when within the next two weeks they change to 

 crickets. The crickets remain as crickets through the winter and until the 10th of 

 the following July, when they change to flying grasshoppers. The flying grasshop- 

 per mates. They remain until October or November, when the females work their 

 bodies dowT> to their wings into the ground and die. Their eggs remain in the tips 

 cf their bodies, where they hatch the next spring, the offspring using the bodies of 

 the mother flying grasshopper as a staircase through which to come to daylight. 



