SEXUAL SELECTION 379 



those employed by the Homoptera." But throughout the 

 animal kingdom we often find the same object gained by 

 the most diversified means; this seems due to the whole 

 organization having undergone multifarious changes in the 

 course of ages, and as part after part varied different varia- 

 tions were taken advantage of for the same general purpose. 

 The diversity of means for producing sound in the three 

 families of the Orthoptera and in the Homoptera impresses 

 the mind with the high importance of these structures to 

 the males, for the sake of calling or alluring the females. 

 We need feel no surprise at the amount of modification 

 which the Orthoptera have undergone in this respect, as 

 we now know, from Dr. Scudder's remarkable discovery," 

 that there has been more than ample time. This naturalist 

 has lately found a fossil insect in the Devonian formation of 

 New Brunswick, which is furnished with "the well-known 

 tympanum or stridulating apparatus of the male Locustidse." 

 The insect, though in most respects related to the Neurop- 

 tera, appears, as is so often the case with very ancient forms, 

 to connect the two related Orders of the Neuroptera and 

 Orthoptera. 



I have but little more to say on the Orthoptera. Some 

 of the species are very pugnacious. When two male field- 

 crickets {^Gryllus campestris) are confined together, they 

 fight till one kills the other; and the species of Mantis are 

 described as manoeuvring with their sword-like front limbs, 

 like hussars with their sabres. The Chinese keep these 

 insects in little bamboo cages, and match them like game- 

 cocks." With respect to color, some exotic locusts are 

 beautifully ornamented; the posterior wings being marked 

 with red, blue, and black; but as throughout the Order the 



^ Landois has receatly found in certain Orthoptera rudimentary structures 

 closely similar to the sound-producing organs in the Homoptera; and this is 

 a surprising fact. See "Zeitschr. fiir Wissensch. Zoolog.," B. xxii. Heft. 3, 

 1871, p. 348. • 



« "Transact. But. Soc," 3d series, vol. il. ("Journal of Proceedings," 



p. \\1). 



46 Westwood, "Modern Class, of Insects," voL i. p. 42t ; for crickets, p. 445k 



