INSECTS. 32'}' 



wliich the males of the Orthoptera produce their sounds are 

 extremely diversified, and are altogether different from 

 those employed by tlie Homoptera.* But throughout the 

 animal kingdom we often find the same object gained by 

 the most diversified means; this seems due to the whole 

 organization having undergone multifarious changes in the 

 course of ages, and as part after part varied different varia- 

 tions v/ere taken advantage of for the same general purpose. 

 /Jhe diversity of means for producing sound in the three 

 families of the Orthoptera and in the Homoptera, 

 impresses the mind with the high importance of these 

 structures to the males, for the sake of calling or alluring 

 the femalesTj We need feel no surprise at the amount of 

 modification which the Orthoptera have undergone in this 

 respect, as we now know, from Dr. Scudder's remarkable 

 discovery, f that there has been more than ample time. 

 This naturalist has lately found a fossil insect in the 

 Devonian formation of New Brunswick, which is furnished 

 with " the well-known tympanum or stridulating apparatus 

 of the male Locustidae." The insect, though in most 

 respects related to the Neuroptera, appears, as is so often 

 the case with very ancient forms, to connect the two related 

 orders of the Neuroptera and Orthoptera. 



I have but little more to say on the Orthoptera. Some 

 of the species are very pugnacious; when two male field- 

 crickets (Gryllns campestris) are confined together they 

 fight till one kills the other; and the species of Mantis are 

 described as maneuvering with their sword-like front limbs, 

 like hussars with their sabers. The Chinese keep these 

 insects in little bamboo cages, and match them like game- 

 cocks. | With respect to color, some exotic locusts are 

 beautifully ornamented; the posterior wings being marked 

 with red, blue and black; but as throughout the order the 

 sexes rarely differ much in color, it is not probable that 

 they owe their bright tints to sexual selection. Conspicu- 



Landois has recently found in certain Orthoptera rudimentary 

 structures closely similar to the sound-producing organs in the 

 Homoptera; and this is a surprising fact. See "Zeitschr. fiir wis- 

 sensch. Zoolog.," B. xxii, Heft 3, 1871, p. 348 



f " Transact. Ent. Soc," 3d series, vol. ii. (" Journal of Proceed- 

 ings," p 117.) 



X West wood, " Modern Class, of Insects," vol. i, p. 427; for crick- 

 ets, p. 445. 



