INSECT MUSICIANS SNODGKASS 435 



the ground with their slender ovipositors (D, E) and the eggs (F) 

 hatch the following summer. 



The song of the male Nemobius is a continuous twittering trill so 

 faint that you must listen attentively to hear it. In singing the male 

 raises his wings at an angle of about 45°. The stridulating vein is 

 set with such line ridges that they would seem incapable of produc- 

 ing even those whispering Nemobius notes. Most of the musical in- 

 struments of insects can be made to produce a swish, a creak, or a 

 grating noise of some sort when handled with our clumsy fingers or 

 with a pair of forceps, but only the skill of the living insect can bring 

 from them the tones and the volume of sound they are capable of 

 producing. 



We now come to our friend Gryllus, the black cricket (Fig. 22) so 

 common everywhere in fields and yards and occasionally entering 

 houses. The true house cricket of Europe, Gryllus domesticus, has 

 become naturalized in this country and occurs in small numbers 

 through the Eastern States. But our common native species is Gryl- 

 lus assimilis. Entomologists distinguish several varieties, though 

 they are inclined to regard them all as belonging to the one species. 



Mature individuals of Gryllus are particularly abundant in the 

 fall ; in southern New England they appear every year at this season 

 by the millions, swarming everywhere, hopping across the country 

 roads in such numbers that it is impossible to ride or walk without 

 crushing them. Most of the females lay their eggs in September and 

 October, depositing them singly in the ground (Fig. 22, D, E) in the 

 same way that Nemobius does. These eggs hatch about the 1st of 

 June the following year. But at this same time another group of in- 

 dividuals reaches maturity, a group that hatched in midsummer of 

 the preceding year and passed the winter in an immature condition. 

 The males of these begin singing at Washington during the last part 

 of May, in Connecticut the 1st of June, and may be heard until the 

 end of June. Then there is seldom any sound of Gryllus until the 

 middle of August, when the males of the spring group begin to ma- 

 ture. From now on their notes become more and more common and 

 by early fall they are to be heard almost continuously day and night 

 until frost. 



The notes of Gryllus are always vivacious, usually cheerful, some- 

 times angry in tone. They are merely chirps and may be known from 

 all others by a broken or vibratory sound. There is little music in 

 them but the player has enough conceit to make up for this lack. Two 

 vigorous males that were kept in a cage together with several females 

 gave each other little peace. Whenever one began to play his fiddle 

 the other started up, to the plain disgust of the first one, and either 

 was always greatly annoyed and provoked to anger if any of the 



