74 Objects for the Microscope. 



TONGUE OF CRICKET. 



(Acheta.) 



This is an example of a true insect tongue, and must 

 be examined with several powers if we wish to see all its 

 beauty. For a general view use an inch lens, and observe 

 the two strong muscles which move it, from whence nume- 

 rous fine spiral fibres arch over the transparent membrane. 

 Afterwards use the half-inch and the quarter-inch, when 

 these fibres appear to be furrowed or fretted, like little files, 

 and must form a most useful tongue for the voracious 

 Cricket. We all know how destructive it is in the house ; 

 gnawing linen or books, or feeding on flour, meat in 

 short, anything it can find. After this tongue has performed 

 its office, there is a complicated gizzard, which will be 

 explained in its proper place ; though it ought to be looked 

 at after the tongue, and with the wing-case of the male 

 Cricket, whose drum and file is a very interesting micro- 

 scopic object. 



The House Cricket belongs to the order Orthoptera, or 

 straight-winged insects. The female does not chirp ; she 

 is known by a long pointed ovipositor, with which she 

 deposits about 300 eggs in a season. 



GIZZARD OF CRICKET. 



This is a most interesting object in connection with the 

 tongue of the Cricket, as illustrative of the digestive organs 

 j>f the Orthoptera. It is usually mounted in Canada balsam 

 and viewed with transmitted light ; but the effect is more 

 beautiful, and the structure better displayed, by examina- 

 tion with the parabolic reflector, or a simple Lieberkuhn, 

 when the scale-like plates are thrown into relief, and the 

 formidable apparatus for digestion is manifest. 



The Cricket has a long and dilatable oesophagus, which 

 ends in a crop or sac for the reception of food in a rough 

 state, and this is followed by a gizzard, consisting of two 

 skins, the inner one plaited into six folds having longitu- 

 dinal rows of teeth resembling toothed scales, the outer 

 row much smaller than those in the centre, and each 



