Page:Insects - Their Ways and Means of Living.djvu/87

 GRASSHOPPER'S COUSINS

males have short stubs of front wings that retain the stridulating organs and enable them to sing with a brisk chirp. Still another large subfamily of the Tettigoniidae is the

Fro. 3oEE. The Coulee cricket, Perauabrus srbri¢ollis, male and female, an e×ample of a cricketlike member of the katydid family Rhadophorinae, including the insects known as "camel crickets." But these are all wingless, and therefore silent. THE CRICKET I¢AlXlIL'," The chirp of the cricket is probably the most familiar note of all orthopteran music. But the only cricket com- monly known to the public is the black field cricket, the lively chirper of out vards and gardens. His European cousin, the house cricket, is famous as the "cricket on the hearth" on acconnt of his fondness for fireside warmth which so stimulates him that he must express his animation in song. This bouse cricket bas been known as Gryllus since the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and his name has been made the basis for the name of his family, the Gryllidae, for there are numerous other crickets, some that live in trees, some in shrubbery, some on the ground, and others in the earth. The crickets have long slender antennae like those of the katydids, and also stridulating organs on the bases of the wings, and ears in their front legs. But they differ from the katydids in having only three .ioints in their feet (.Fig. 17 C). The cricket's foot in this respect resembles the foot

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INSECTS