404 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW-YORK 
OR APE. LEAVES. 
plate ii, may almost a.ways be found on grape vines, in July, 
August and September, and numbers of them frequently occur 
upon the same vine. See Harris’s Treatise, p. 22. 
131. White flower-cricket, (Ecanth-us niveus, Dcgcer. ( Orthoptera. 
Achetidse.) 
Mounted among and feeding upon the leaves of the vine, in 
August, a slim narrow cricket about 0.70 long, of a clear white 
color throughout. 
The genus CEcanthus to which this insect pertains, was founded 
by Serville upon a species common in the south of Europe, 
named pellucens by Scopoli, for specimens of which, with many 
other European Orthoptera, I am indebted to M. Brisout de Barne- 
ville. Congeneric with this European insect we have three spe¬ 
cies in the United States, which are but little known, although 
they were named and described by Degeer nearly a century ago, 
and two of them are so common in the State of New-York that 
their song is often heard upon the vines and bushes in our yards, 
night after night, through the latter part of summer. And as 
they are on several accounts an interesting and singular kind of 
cricket, I here present the investigations which I have made 
relating to them. 
The European and our American flower crickets all bear a 
striking resemblance to each other, both in their external appear¬ 
ance and their habits, showing this to be one of the most natural 
genera in the family to which they pertain. They also differ 
very much from all the other crickets. They are mostly of a 
clear white color instead of black or dull brown which are the 
prevailing colors among the insects of this group. Their form 
also is long and narrow, particularly in the females, which have 
the wings wrapped more closely around the body than they are 
in the males. Their hind legs also are long and slender, resem¬ 
bling those of a grasshopper more than a cricket; and their 
hind feet have four joints, all the feet in other crickets having 
three joints only. Brulle, who subjected the European species to 
a rigid examination, and was the first to detect the number of 
joints in its feet, and some other important points in its structure, 
states (Hist. Nat. des Ins. vol. ix, p. 1741 that the thorax of this 
