230 



GLEANINGS FROM NATURE. 



ing note the well known t-r-r r-e-e; t-r-r r-e-e, 

 repeated without pause or variation about seventy 

 times a minute. 



The females of the snowy cricket do much harm 

 by ovipositing in the tender canes or shoots of various 

 plants, as the raspberry, grape, plum, peach, etc. ; no 

 less than 321 eggs, by actual count, having been found 

 in a raspberry cane 22 inches in length. The eggs 

 are laid in autumn and at first the injury is shown 

 only by a slight roughness of the 

 bark, but afterwards the cane or 

 branch frequently dies above 

 the puncture, or is so much in- 

 jured as to be broken off by the 

 first high wind. If the injured 

 and broken canes containing the 

 eggs be collected and burned in 

 early spring the number of in- 

 sects for that season will be ma- 

 terially lessened. 



This injurious habit is partly, 

 if not wholly, offset by the car- 

 nivorous habits of the crickets, 

 as the young, which are hatched 

 in June, feed for some time 

 upon the various species of 

 aphides or plant lice which in- 

 fest the shrubbery they frequent. 



in raspberry cane. MisS Mary E. Murtfeldt, of 



has given an 



interesting account of some ex- 

 periments and observations concerning this habit, 



Fig. 5&-Eggs of Tree Cricket 



a. Cane, showing puncture; fc, Tri,,L- wnr \f r 



cane split to show eggs; c, egg ^ U >U ' ' 



enlarged. 



