Io THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [Vor. XXXIX. 
sum of the abdomen, in the fold between the third and fourth 
tergites. In handling the living male, and raising the tegmina 
with one’s fingers to an angle of forty-five degrees or more, the 
gland may be detected. It does not protrude except during the 
first moments of excitement of capture when its folds are thrust 
out. This would indicate that the structure is a repugnatorial 
organ, though this is conjectural, there being no odor given off 
from it. A similar gland occurring in a like situation, on the 
dorsal aspect of the allied snowy cricket, C. niveus, gives to the 
insect, when likewise excited, a faint odor not unlike some 
flower. 
The Method of Oviposition. — On October first, I examined 
a large number of the horse-weed and golden-rod a-field, which 
showed the scars where the crickets had oviposited. The fact 
was developed that the eggs of this species were always depos- 
ited on the sunny south exposure of the main stem of the plants. 
This is obviously an advantage in furnishing the necessary heat 
in hatching the eggs, and to the delicate young when they first 
emerge. In Figure ı the serial subfigures represent the stems 
of the blackberry, horse-weed, and golden-rod, all shorn of leaves, 
to demonstrate the scars or holes, as well as the eggs 7 situ. 
I witnessed the act of oviposition for the first time on the after- 
noon of September 12, and thereafter observed it on a number 
of occasions. In brief the process is as follows: the female 
coming to a suitable spot on the stem, she prepares it by biting 
it with her jaws, spending scarcely a minute in doing so. Then, 
moving her ovipositor under her body at nearly a right angle, 
she places the tip into this superficial abrasion and immediately 
proceeds to drill a hole. The drilling is accomplished by rotat- 
ing the ovipositor while keeping the end, which is provided with 
a dentate rasp, firmly pressed against the stem. The abdomen, 
which she turns from side to side, takes an active part in this 
procedure, acting as upon a pivot, and at times covering about 
forty degrees in these movements. The ovipositor is soon 
passed through the tough external covering and finally pene- 
trating deeper and deeper into the pith. In the beginning the 
course of the hole takes a right angle, but as she proceeds its 
direction is changed, taking a curved inclination backwards, as 
