INSECT MUSICIANS — SNODGRASS 



441 



We should naturally like to know why these little creatures are 

 such persistent singers and of what use their music is to them. Do 

 the males really sing -to charm and attract the females as is usually 

 presumed? We do not know; but sometimes as a male sings a 

 female approaches him from behind, noses about on his back and 

 soon finds there a deep basin-like cavity situated just behind the 

 bases of the elevated wings. This basin contains a clear liquid 

 which the female proceeds to lap up very eagerly as the male re- 

 mains quiet with wings upraised though he has ceased to play 

 (fig. 25). We must suspect, then, that in this case the female has 

 been attracted to the male rather by his confectionery offering than 



Fig. 25. — A female tree cricket feeding on the liquid exuded from the back of the male 

 while the latter holds his wings elevated In attitude of singing. (Oecanthus angusti- 

 pennis, enlarged 3% times) 



by his music. The purpose of the latter, therefore, would appear 

 to be to advertise to the female the whereabouts of the male, who 

 she knows has sweets to offer, or if the liquid is sour or bitter it is 

 all the same, the female likes it and comes after it. If, now, this 

 luring of the female sometimes ends in marriage we may see here 

 the real reason for the male's possessing his music-making organs 

 and his instinct to play them so continuously. 



A male cricket with his front wings raised and seen from above 

 and behind as he might look to a female is shown in Figure 26. 

 The basin (B) on his back is a deep cavity on the dorsal plate of 

 the third thoracic segment. Two deeper pits in the bottom are 

 covered with fringes of long hairs, which Parrott and Fulton say 

 are glandular. But also a pair of large branching glands (fig. 

 27, Gl) within the body open just inside the rear lip of the basin, 



