Grasshoppers, Katydids, Crickets, etc. 



eastern and Southwestern States. It is estimated that probably 

 ten thousand species of Orthoptera exist in the world, but this 

 estimate is probably a small one, since, as in the other groups, 

 the smaller and more inconspicuous species have not been col- 

 lected in out-of-the-way places. The average traveller who picks 

 up specimens, and even the average collector, when he goes to 

 some rarely visited corner of the world, will always collect the 

 large and conspicuous things and neglect the smaller and more 

 insignificant specimens. From this habit, it results that in the 

 large museums, like the British Museum, the Berlin Museum 

 and the Vienna Museum, and our own National Museum, large, 

 exotic forms from most portions of the world are well represented, 

 but there are comparatively few of the little dull-colored ones. 



The order Orthoptera affords a peculiar interest to the stu- 

 dent of the phenomena of protective and aggressive resemblances. 

 The family Phasmidse includes those remarkable creatures which 

 are so much like twigs and leaves that they have been called 

 walking sticks and leaf insects. It also includes the great group 

 of praying mantids which feed upon other insects and which, 

 though slow movers, are enabled to capture their prey by means 

 of their perfect disguise which, in temperate regions, makes them 

 resemble twigs and in tropical regions brings about an extraor- 

 dinary resemblance to flowering vegetation, some of them 

 being most highly colored, as the flower mantids, which resem- 

 ble the most conspicuous orchids. 



Another fact which renders this group of especial interest is 

 that many of them are so musical. One often hears of the 

 "song" of the katydid, but as a matter of fact, these insects are 

 not vocalists but instrumentalists. Portions of the body are so 

 modified as to produce musical sounds by the rubbing of one 

 part upon another. In the crickets it is the rubbing of the upper 

 wings upon the hind v/ings, the membrane being veined in such 

 a way as to produce a chirping sound. In some of the grass- 

 hoppers the sound is brought about by the rubbing of the hind 

 thighs against the edge of the fore-wings, or " tegmina." These 

 musical powers are confined to the male sex and the tunes which 

 they play are, while songs without words, always love songs. 



Many of the Orthoptera are great jumpers, their hind thighs 

 being thickened so as to enable them to make great leaps. The 

 common name grasshopper is based upon their facility in this 



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