LETTER XLVI 1 



TO THE SAME 



SELBORNE. 

 "resonant arbusta ." 



THERE is a steep abrupt pasture field interspersed with 

 furze close to the back of this village, well known by the 

 name of the Short Lithe, consisting of a rocky dry soil, and 

 inclining to the afternoon sun. This spot abounds with the 

 gryllus campestriSy or field-cricket ; which, though frequent 

 in these parts, is by no means a common insect in many 

 other counties. 



1 My friend, Mr. R. I. Pocock, sends me the following interesting note : " In 

 connection with White's admirable account of the habits of crickets, it may be 

 added that these insects are very closely allied to the locusts and grasshoppers, 

 possessing, like them, special organs for the production of the sounds whereby 

 they everywhere advertise their presence. These organs consist of a horny 

 file and ridge ; but, curiously enough, whereas in the grasshoppers the file is 

 situated on the inner surface of the thigh of the hind leg, and the noise is produced 

 by this segment being moved up and down in such a way that the file scrapes 

 across a prominent ridge on the outer surface of the front wing, in the locusts, 

 and, as White states, the crickets also, the chirrup is emitted when the two front 

 wings are rubbed together, the file being upon the under side of one of these 

 wings, and the ridge that it scrapes against, on the upper side of the other. Nor 

 is this all ; sounding organs are naturally enough accompanied by hearing organs. 

 These consist, as in ourselves, of a tightly stretched vibratory membrane or 

 tympanum, supplied with nerves for the appreciation of the vibration. But the 

 situation of these ears differs even more than that of the stridulating organs, 

 being in the case of the grasshoppers lodged on the first segment of the abdomen, 

 and, in the locusts and crickets, on the shin-joint of the first pair of legs ! " 



" Four species of crickets are found in England, namely, the three mentioned 

 above by White, and a smaller kind, the wood-cricket (Nemobius sylvcstris), which 

 was evidently unknown to that naturalist, although it is to be met with amongst 

 dead leaves in the southern counties of England." [R. B. S.] 



