270

FAMILY VII.—GRYLLIDAE.

body, 11 mm.; width of male wing-covers, 6 mm.; of female,3 mm.

This is one of the most abundant of our tree-crickets, andcan be found during August and September in our gardens andorchards. Even if not seen the insect can not escape detec-tion, as its stridulation is very shrill. Though usually heardat night it is sometimes also heard on cloudy days, butonly faintly. This stridulating is continuous, and is a puls-ating sound like re-teat, re-teat, or a-beat, a -beat.

The female of niveus cause much injury by ovipositing inthe tender canes or shoots of various plants, as the rasp-berry, grape, plum, peach, etc. Prof. Blatchley counted noless than 321 eggs in a raspberry cane 22 inches in length.The eggs are laid in autumn and at first the injury is shownonly by a slight roughness of the bark, but afterwards thecane frequently dies above the puncture, or is so much injuredas to be broken off by the first high wind. If the injured andbroken canes containing the eggs are collected and burnedin early spring the number of Snowy Tree-crickets for thatseason can be materially lessened. If, however, our treesharbor many leaf-lice it is best not to apply such a heroictreatment; it would be best to bring the canes containingsuch eggs to places where lice abound; as these crickets pos-sess carnivorous propensities, they can be utilized to greatlyreduce the numbers of injurious leaf-lice. Miss Mary E.Murtfeldt, of St. Louis , Mo. , has given a most interestingaccount of some experiments and observations with thisinsect, and the following extract is given: “Some leaves ofplum infested with a delicate species of yellow aphis wereput into a jar with the young of CBcanthus niveus, but at-tracted no immediate attention. As twilight deepened, how-ever, the crickets awakened to greater activity. By holdingthe jar against the light of the window or bringing it sud-denly into the lamp light, the little nocturnal hunters mightbe seen hurrying with a furtive, darting movement over theleaves and stems, the head bent down, the antennae stretched