Page:Jardine Naturalist's library Entomology.djvu/250

244 Grasshoppers, and Locusts. These differ from all the preceding tribes, in having the hinder legs lengthened and much thickened, in order to fit them for leaping. Besides this marked peculiarity in structure, there are others no less striking in their manners and economy. The males are musical, or, in other words, have the power of producing a stridulent note, apparently for the purpose of attracting the attention of the females. With very few exceptions they are herbivorous insects, and deposit their eggs in the earth. In general they frequent plants, but a few live in holes which they excavate in the soil.

Antennæ very long and slender, composed of numerous articulations; head generally large, thick, and somewhat rounded; tegmina lying nearly flatly along the back, and for the most part rather short; wings longer than the tegmina, and projecting behind the body; tarsi generally three-jointed.

The family of the crickets presents several variations in the possession or non-possession of ocelli. In Tridactylus there are three distinct ocelli; in the mole cricket only two are visible, the third being apparently obsolete, or, as Latreille says, "subobliteratus." In Myrmecophilus they are entirely wanting, and in the true crickets they are said by Latreille to be "subobsolete;" but this last statement needs modification. In the domestic cricket no trace of them can be detected; while in the new species figured a pair of these organs are very distinct, as they are