OIlTHOPTEllA. 



167 



Ordek v. — ORTHOPTERA. 



The insects comprising this order were first recognized as different from all the 

 other Hexapoda by De Geer in 1773, who gave to the group the name Dermaptera, 

 from their semi-membraneous anterior wings or elytra. Linne placed them with the 

 Hemiptera, and Geoffroy united them with the Coleoptera. Olivier, however, was the 

 first to propose for them the name Orthopt^res in 1789, but the Latin form did not 

 appear until 1806, when Latreille used the term in Sonnini's Buifon. The name 

 Orthoptera (orthos, straight; pteron, wing) was given to the order from the char- 

 acter of the front wings, which are straight, usually narrow, pergameneous or parch- 

 ment-like, thickly veined, and overlapping at the tips when closed. The hind-wings 

 are membraneous, with the veins quite straight. They fold up like a fan. 



As an order the Orthoptera have never been as satisfactorily restricted as have 

 been some of the other groups. From time to time it has been made the provisional 

 resting-place for various small but comprehensive families that appeared to belong to 

 none of the other orders. 



One of the latest systems of classification is that by Dr. A. S. Packard, Jr., who, in 

 an article on the arrangement of hexapodous insects into orders and sub-orders, proposes 

 for a certain group the name of Phyloptera, under which he places as of equal rank 

 the Dermaptera, Orthoptera, Pseudoneuroptera, and Neuroptera as sub-orders. In 

 this article he shows the 



necessity for such a 

 change, and bases his 

 views upon the most 

 recent researches in the 

 embryology and devel- 

 opment of insects. 



The order Orthop- 

 tera, as restricted and 

 generally accepted by 

 entomologists, and as we 

 shall treat of it here, 

 contains but the follow- 

 ing families, all of which 

 are terrestrial, with, perhaps, a single exception among the Phasmidae : the Blattidge, 

 or cockroaches; the Mantidse, or rear-horses; the Phasmidse, or walking-sticks; the 

 Gryllidae, or crickets ; the Locustidae, or grasshoppers and katydids, and the Acridida;, 

 or locusts. 



The transformations of orthopterous insects are incomplete, i. e., the young when 

 first hatched differ but very little from the mature insect except in size and in the 

 absence of wings or rudiments of these appendages. There is no state of quiescence 

 as among those insects which undergo complete metamorphosis, the nymph or pupa 

 being quite as active as the imago, and differing from it chiefly in possessing the wings 

 and genitalia in a rudimentary state. The genitalia are, however, sufficiently developed 

 in some instances to permit of coition. The number of moults varies in different groups 

 as well as in the individuals of a species, some undergoing as many as six, while others 

 pnss through only three or four. It is generally the case that those species in which 



Fig. 243. —Mole crickets. 



