42 



characters in common with crickets. They appear to Uve chiefly in 

 holes in timber. Their elytra are broad, and wings very voluminous. 

 Their jaws are powerful, and antennae very long. None of them can 

 stridulate. 



You are probably familiar, either from pictures or from specimens, 

 with Schizodactylus inonstrosus^ Drury, a great ungainly monster from 

 West India and Burmah. The tarsi are very large and flat, and 

 furnished with curious dilatations ; the elytra are very broad, and the 

 voluminous wings project far beyond them, the delicate ends re- 

 sembling the wings of crickets, except in that they are curled and 

 twisted into a spiral. 



Orthopterists have long been puzzled whether to place this 

 anomalous creature in the Locustodea or in the Gryllodea. 



Gryllodea are poorly represented in Europe, but a large number of 

 species are found distributed all over the tropical world. We have 

 an excellent monograph by de Saussure, but since its appearance in 

 1869, little work has been done at the group. In various papers and 

 faunistic works isolated species have been described, but the most 

 important contribution to our knowledge of the section has been in 

 the " Biologia Centrali- Americana." 



The very curious forms of Gryllotalpidas are found all over the 

 world, which is curious, as it is a highly modified form, and the 

 various genera resemble each other very closely in general appearance. 

 Some crickets are semi-aquatic. Professor Gilson exhibited a cricket 

 at the Zoological Congress at Cambridge, which he had taken leaping 

 on the surface of a pool below a waterfall in the Fiji Islands. In 

 this species the spines of the posterior tarsi were very considerably 

 elongated. Tridadyliis is a curious form, something like a tiny 

 Gryllotalpa, which occurs on mud by the side of pools. They 

 burrow in the soft stuff, and are very active and difficult to catch. 



The stridulating apparatus of Gryllodea resembles that of the 

 Locustodea, but each elytron is modified in a similar manner. The 

 sound is produced on each movement of the bow, i. e. when the 

 elytra cross in each direction. The broadest part of the elytra is 

 the anal part, which is horizontally folded over the abdomen. The 

 remaining part is perpendicular, and folded by the sides of the insect. 

 It is only this anal part which is modified. In the female we see the 

 normal condition of the elytra, but in the male the venation is 

 modified to an extraordinary degree. As in the Locustodea, the 

 auditory organ of the crickets is in the anterior tibise. 



The majority of crickets are retiring insects, chiefly nocturnal in 

 habits, living in holes and under logs. The CEcanthid^ are, how- 

 ever, flower-haunting creatures, very delicate in build, and light in 

 colour. They are not a numerous family, but occur throughout the 

 temperate regions. 



Crickets are fierce and pugnacious animals ; we read that in China 

 the natives keep them in cages to make the males fight. They bet 

 upon the result, and get very excited. 



