CRICKETS AND EARWIGS 



149 



and in this country five species have been met with, 

 though for some reason best known to themselves, only 

 one has domesticated itself. The 

 family is called Gryllidoe, and is 

 closely allied to those of the grass- 

 hoppers and locusts, forming with 

 them one of the great divisions of 

 the order Orthoptera, viz., that 

 of the " leapers." To another 

 section of the same order, viz., 

 the " runners," it will be remem- 

 bered, the cockroach belongs. Our 

 English domestic species (Fig. 44) 

 is called Gryllus domesticus. At 

 first sight a cricket strikes one as 

 being not unlike a grasshopper in 

 general form, the resemblance 

 being caused chiefly by the great 



proportionate length and elevated position of the hind 

 legs. In body, however, it is broader and flatter than a 

 grasshopper, and in other respects is sufficiently distinct 

 to be regarded as the type of a different family. 



The mouth organs bear a close resemblance to those 

 of the cockroach, as a comparison of the accompanying 

 figures with those on pp. 128, 129 will testify. As one 

 looks in the insect's face, the greater part of the mouth 

 organs is concealed by a not very stout flap, hinged above 

 and shaped like a cheese-cutter; this is the labrum, or 

 upper lip. On lifting it, like the visor of a knight's 

 helmet, there is disclosed a pair of stout, dark brown, 

 horny, toothed jaws (mandibles) (Fig. 45), which are used 

 not merely to divide the food, but also as excavating imple- 

 ments, to hollow out retreats into which the insects can 

 retire in the daytime or when alarmed. These mandibles 



FIG. 44. House Cricket 

 (Gryllus domesticus). 



