MORSE: ORTHOPTERA OF NEW ENGLAND. 401 
and Grand Lake Stream in the eastern part; at Woodstock, Vt.; 
and Waltham, Wellesley and vicinity in Massachusetts. Wal- 
den records it from points in Connecticut. Dates of capture 
range from August 15 to November 1. 
THE TREE-CRICKETS— OECANTHINAE. 
The Tree-crickets differ so widely in appearance from the 
common notion of a Cricket (which is based on that of the 
Ground- or Field-crickets) that the novice is likely to pass them 
by as something else. The difference, however, though great, 
is less than that shown by the burrowing or Mole-crickets. 
Tree-crickets are slender-bodied, delicately formed, slow-mov- 
ing insects with but feeble leaping powers, and spend their lives 
wholly above ground among the leaves and branches of trees, 
shrubs, and weeds. Their eggs are placed in the bark or pithy 
stems of the plants on which they live, in holes drilled b}^ the ovi- 
positor of the female. The punctures thus made are sometimes 
sufficiently numerous to be injurious by mechanically weakening 
the stem or interfering with the circulation of the sap in it, result- 
ing in its death or breaking down, wdth consequent loss of fruit- 
crop; or by providing a means of entrance for the spores of fungi 
or bacterial diseases. The injury done is perhaps often more 
than compensated by the destruction of aphids and scale insects 
infesting the plant, upon which the Crickets feed in both adult 
and immature stages. They also eat other insects and tender 
plant tissue in leaves, flowers, and fruits. 
Perhaps the trilling stridulation of Tree-crickets has attracted 
the attention of literary minds even more generally than the chirp 
of the Crickets of the field. ]\Iany passages in prose and verse 
reflect the influence that the songs of these insects have exerted 
on the aesthetic sensibilities of their hearers. These insects are, 
in truth, veritable dryads, of fairy-hke daintiness and evasive- 
ness, often heard but seldom seen. One of them haunts the pine 
trees and its voice is a continuous trill, low and silvery, that car- 
ries to a surprising distance. It seems to be ventriloquial in 
effect, and correspondingly difficult to trace to its source. 
The song of another — the Snowy Tree-cricket — has received 
various descriptive appellations. Burroughs calls it a "purring"; 
