INSECT MUSICIANS SNODCEASS 431 



THE CRICKET FAMILY 



The chirp of the cricket is probably the most familiar note of all 

 Orthopteran music. But the only cricket commonly known to the 

 public is the black field cricket, the lively chirper of our yards and 

 gardens. His European cousin, the house cricket, is famous as the 

 " cricket on the hearth " on account of his fondness for fireside 

 warmth which so stimulates him that he must express his animation 

 in song. This house cricket has been known as Gryllus since the 

 time of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and his name has been 

 made the basis for the name of his family, the Gryllidse, for there 

 are numerous other crickets, some that live in trees, some in shrub- 

 bery, some on the ground, and others in the earth. 



Fig. 18. — The Coulee cricket, Peranabrus scahricollls, male and female, an example of 

 a cricket-like member of the katydid family 



The crickets have long slender antennas like those of the katydids, 

 and also stridulating organs on the bases of the wings, and ears in 

 their front legs. But they differ from the katydids in having only 

 three joints in their feet (fig. 4, C). The cricket's foot in this respect 

 resembles the foot of the grasshopper (A), but usually differs from 

 that of the grasshopper in having the basal joint smooth or hairy 

 all around or with only one pad on the under surface. In most 

 crickets also the second joint is very small. Some crickets have 

 large wings, others have small wings, some no wings at all. The 

 females are provided with long ovipositors for placing their eggs 

 in twigs of trees or in the ground (figs. 21, 22). 



The musical or stridulating organs of the crickets are similar to 

 those of the katydids, being formed from the veins of the bases of 

 the front wings. But in the crickets the parts are equally developed 

 on each wing, and it looks as if the crickets could play with either 

 wing uppermost. Yet most of them consistently keep the right wing 

 on top and use the file of this wing and the scraper of the left, just 

 the reverse of the custom amongst the katydids. Yet there are 

 exceptions to the rule amongst the crickets. It has been shown by 

 Lutz that 2 per cent of a large number of individuals of the black 

 field cricket, Gi^yllus assimilis, that he examined had the left wing 



