74 Objects for the Microscope. 



TONGUE OF CRICKET. 



(Achetce.) 



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 

 of 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 



