ORTHOPTERA OF NOVA SCOTIA. PIERS. 333 



night. By the end of October or the first of November, 

 even on fine days, only four or five individuals may be heard, 

 rather faintly, and the sound abbreviated to a short chirp, 

 not the prolonged trill of early autumn, and now only in 

 daytime. Thej^ are last heard at Halifax from about the 

 7th to the 12th November, according to the character of 

 the particular season and the temperature, the final one 

 being heard about noon on a bright, warm, Indian-summer 

 day when practically all the leaves are off the trees, and 

 after the insect has survived two or three fairly hard night 

 frosts which have formed thin ice and frozen the bare ground. 

 In 1916, as will be more fully desciibed below, a few sleighs 

 were in use onh' two days after I heard the last cricket. 

 To illustrate somewhat the effect of weather conditions 

 upon crickets, we may take the autumn of 1916, which was 

 generally a very mild and fine one. On the 11th Oct. the 

 first light frost occurred about some parts of Halifax, and 

 thin ice formed during the mornings of 12th and 18th Oct. and 

 6th and 12th Nov. About 15th Oct. -hardly any crickets 

 were heard; but on the 22nd, a mild, damp day, the pro- 

 longed shrilling of mam' was heard in the daytime, while 

 on the 31st, which was very mild but cloudy, onl}^ a couple 

 were faintly heard. On 3rd Nov., a lovely sunny morning 

 after a hoar-frost of the previous night, about a dozen were 

 heard chirring faintly and briefly. On the 6th, another fine 

 sunny day after a night when thin ice had formed and the 

 ground had been sHghtly frozen, about six were noted, their 

 trill being short and faint. Again on the 12th, after a night 

 of ice and frozen ground, four were faintly heard, in the 

 middle of the day when the temperature was 35° Far., fine 

 and sunny but cold, in short grass on the sunny side of a 

 slope in a pasture at the head of the North'West Arm. They 

 were the last noted. Very light snow was on the ground next 

 morning, on the 14th about four inches of snow fell and a 

 few sleighs were out, on the 15th the day temperature was 



