120 



FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT 



j'^et succeeded in bringing them 

 through all their molts, and no 

 one has bred the perfect insect, I 

 have little doubt, from the larval 

 characteristics, that they will 

 prove to be the Jumping Tree 

 Cricket mentioned. 



This insect (Fig. 48, «, ? ; 5, J) 

 is of a pale yellowish-brown color, 

 the female differing from the male 

 in possessing a long ovipositor, 

 and in her wings being more 

 rounded and less ribbed and veined, so that she can not sing as he 

 does. 



The twigs or canes of various cultivated plants, and notably those 

 of the Grape-vine, Apple, Peach, Raspberry, Blackberry, White willow 

 and Soft maple, are often more or less split or disfigured by a series of 

 closely set but irregular punctures, as illustrated at figure 49, a. Upon 

 cutting into such twigs we find that, unlike the eggs we have already 

 mentioned, these all lie diagonally across the pith, close together, in 

 a single, irregular, longitudinal row, as at h — the irregularity some- 

 times making the row look as if double. More carefully examined 

 with a lens, each egg appears pale yellowish, sub-elliptical, a little 

 curved, more pointed at lower end (c), and capped at the head or 

 more rounded end, with regular}^ arranged, white, opaque granula- 

 tions, which, under a low-power microscope, appear as shown at d. 



These are the eggs of the Snowy Tree cricket 

 {(Ecmithiis niveus Harr.), an insect briefly noticed 

 in my first Report (p. 138). The young also hatch 

 about the first of May. After eating through its 

 egg-cap, the new-born cricket is still enveloped in 

 an exceedingly fine membrane, from whicJi it soon 

 extricates itself, and which it leaves at the orifice of 

 the puncture. These young crickets are whitish 

 and very active, and generally conceal themselves 

 in the thick June foliage of our woods or our or- 

 chards. At this time of their life they subsist prin- 

 cipally on plant lice, eggs of insects, and other deli- 

 cate animal food, and, if they can get nothing better, 

 will exhibit their cannibalistic propensities by de- 

 vouring the weaker individuals of their own kind. 

 It is astonishing how rapidly, at this age, they will 

 clear an Aphis-covered twig. Subsequently, as 

 they grow larger, they are often content with a 

 vegetable diet, and thus they perfectly combine 

 in one species herbivorous and carnivorous habits. 

 After the first molt, they begin to vary a good deal 



