RELATION OF THE CHIRPING OF THE TREE 
CRICKET (OECANTHUS NIVEUS) TO 
TEMPERATURE. 
ROBERT T. EDES. 
Awmonc the shrill insect notes of the late summer and autumn 
nights, that of one of the crickets is easily to be distinguished 
from the others by a little attention, on account of its per- 
sistency and regularity. From nightfall until nearly daylight 
his monotonous chirp continues, affected only by weather and 
temperature, giving one the impression of a close attention to 
business entirely foreign to the character of careless freedom 
and irresponsible joyousness attributed to his kindred by the 
poets from Anacreon down. 
Dr. Holmes alone seems to recognize in that “testy little 
dogmatist,”’ the katydid, one of the same order of insects, a 
certain tenacity of purpose such as is appropriate to a resident 
in a less luxurious climate. It would be interesting to know 
whether this very positive insect is amenable to changes of 
temperature as quickly as his humbler cousin. In spite of the 
alleged use made of his relative the “black cricket,” by Brian 
O’Lynn in the song, our friend is not the same personage at 
all; neither is he the “cricket on the hearth,” although Keats 
recognizes in the latter a susceptibility to the same influences. 
On a long winter evening when the frost 
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills 
The cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever. 
As I am informed by Mr. Walter Faxon, the tree cricket 
(Oecanthus niveus) is the source of this persistent and rhyth- 
mical stridulation, being much more easily heard than seen, as 
he lives in leafy shrubs and stops his music when approached too 
closely. Hence the reader is referred to the Century Dictionary 
and works on entomology for a description. 
935 
