36 CALIFORNIA STATE COMMISSION OF HORTICULTURE. 



organs. In those species which ' have well-developed wings, the males 

 are provided with an elaborate musical apparatus, the use of which is 

 to call the females. The chirping made by these insects is familiar to 

 most people, to all who have spent a summer in the country, and the 

 short rasping sound made by one species (Cyrtophyllus concavus) has 

 given it the popular name of katydid, which its song is supposed to 

 resemble. In the different species, each has its own distinct note, and 

 entomologists who have made a special study of them can distinguish 

 each by its peculiar sound. 



Comstock arranges the Locustidse in four general groups for facility 

 in studying, to which he gives the everyday names of: 



1. The Meadow Grasshoppers, including the smaller and common 

 members of the family, which abound in meadows and moist places. 



2. The Katydids, or tree crickets, generally bright green in color, 

 strongly resembling the foliage among which they live, and which 

 render night musical with their songs. One of the most common of 

 these in California is the angular-winged katydid (Microcentrum reti- 

 nervis). The eggs of the insect are laid in a double row along the edge 

 of a leaf, a twig, or other object, overlapping each other like a row of 

 shingles, and are often mistaken for scale insects. 



3. The Cricket-like Grasshoppers, which are found under stones and 

 rubbish, especially in woods, and which are wingless. 



4. The Shield-back Grasshopper, also wingless, dull colored, and 

 resembling crickets. This group is represented in California by the 

 Stenopelmatus irregularis, a large, clumsy creature, with a big head and 

 long antennae, which lives under stones and strongly resembles the 

 mole or Indian cricket. 



Family Gryllidse (The Crickets). The members of this family of 

 jumping Orthoptera resemble the Locustidse, in that they have long, 

 slender, tapering antennae, but differ from them in having the wings 

 laid flat on the back, the forewings bent down on the sides. The 

 ovipositor in the female is long and pointed, while in the Locustidae it 

 is flat and sword-like. The males of this family are the greatest of all 

 insect musicians, and the sharp chirp, chirp, chirp of the cricket is well 

 known. The commonest and best known of these insects is the field 

 cricket, which appears in such quantities in our country towns on warm 

 summer nights, where they are attracted to the electric light and perish 

 by millions without apparently diminishing the next season's supply. 

 Every warm night in every summer brings them out in countless 

 swarms. It is this insect that we generally understand as being meant 

 when the cricket is alluded to, yet it is but one of a very numerous 

 family, comprising eight subfamilies, each containing several genera 

 and species. These, however, are classed into three distinct groups, a 



