KATYDIDS AND THEIR KIN. 225 



several rods away. It is usually attributed, by those 

 who have given little attention to insect sounds, to 

 the field crickets or to some of the smaller frogs. 

 They are very difficult to locate by this note, and I 

 have on several occasions approached cautiously on 

 hands and knoes, a certain spot and have remained 

 silent for some minutes while the chirping went on, 

 apparently beneath my very eyes ; yet when the sup- 

 posed exact position of the chirper was, determined 

 and a quick movement was made to unearth him he 

 could not be found. Indeed, it is only by chance, as 

 by the sudden turning over of a log in a soft, mucky 

 place that a person can happen upon one of them 

 unawares. Even then quick movement is necessary 

 to capture him before he scrambles into the open 

 mouth of one of the deep burrows which he has ever 

 in readiness. 



Probably the best known crickets in the State arc 

 the "field crickets" those dark-colored, thick-bodied 

 species, mature specimens of which are so abundant 

 from late summer until after heavy frosts, beneath 

 logs, boards, stones, and especially beneath rails in the 

 rorners of the old-fashioned and rapidly disappearing 



rail fences. The eggs of some of the 



The Field ^ i i i j ^.i, j 



c . . . held crickets are laid in the ground in 



late autumn and hatch the following 

 May. Those of at least two species are, however, laid 

 in late summer or early autumn, and hatch before 

 frost, the half grown young being found in numbers 

 throughout the winter beneath logs and chunks. On 

 cold days they are usually found in a dormant con- 

 dition, each one at the bottom of a cone-shaped cavity 

 15 



