KATYDIDS AND CRICKETS.
COME, put on your hats, and we'll take a walk down this shady
lane to the old stone wall.
Did you wake up last night? If you did, per-haps you heard some musicians playing on their fiddles; and may be you heard these same players get into a quarrel about somebody named Katy. Like most people who get to quarreling, they talked very loud; some said "Katy didn't"
and some said "Katy did." I listened a long while, but I couldn't find out what Katy did do; could you?
Wouldn't you like to know how these musicians look? Hunt carefully among the leaves on this bush, and perhaps you will find one. Here, he's hopped out on my apron; nothing but a grasshopper after all! He's nearly an inch and a half long. When he lifts up his wings, you see that his body is pale green, much lighter than the wings. He has a fine, thin pair of wings, that, when he is not flying, he folds up under a pair of wing-covers. These wing-covers are so large that they cover not only the delicate wings, but the whole body, meeting together on the underside like the two leaves of a pea pod.
The lady katydids are real still; it is only the male katydids that make the noise. Look! This little fellow on my apron is going to give us some music.
Do you see how he does it? He rubs the upper edge of one wing-cover against the other. Katydids do not breathe through lungs, as you and, I do; but all through the body, the wings, and even the legs, are little tubes that carry air to every part of the insect. They live on grasses, grains, and flower buds. The Indians think they are good to eat, and gather a great many of them, which they roast, grind into flour, and make up into cakes. Do you think you would like to eat them?
Then, I heard another kind of singers, too, last night. We'll walk down to the stone wall, and see if we can find them. There one goes into that little hole under the wall! Let us poke a straw or blade of grass into the hole, and then pull it out. He will be sure to come out clinging to the end of the straw; for although he is such a good singer, he is a bad fellow; he fights with every-thing that comes in his way. He has a rusty, black coat, and we call him a cricket.
He has a cousin that lives in the trees, and has a much stronger voice. He has an ivory white coat, and his wife, who is larger, has a dress, nearly white, with a little: green on the wings.
They are shy, and very hard to catch, so I don't think we could find any if we tried.
Too many crickets are apt to hurt a garden, because they eat the newest parts of plants, the melon and squash-vines, and the like; though they do some good„by eating bugs.
They live in great numbers in the warm States of the South, and often hurt the tobacco plants by eating holes in the leaves. But I don't believe we would care if they ate up all the tobacco plants,
do you?
W. E. L.
THE MOLE CRICKET.
THE mole cricket is a very homely fellow, as you will see by this picture. He does not look much like the crickets we commonly find in the gardens. He is about twice as large as a house cricket, being nearly two inches long. His fore legs look like those of the common garden mole, and for this reason he is called the mole cricket. These legs are broad and strong, with four finger-like projections on the lower side. The other two pairs of legs are strong, too; but the first pair are so unusually large that these look slender beside them. His great gauzy, three-cornered wings are handsome. The small pair of wings, or wing-covers, do not half hide the folded wings. With its fore feet this cricket can burrow rapidly.
Its home is under ground. There is only one chamber, with neatly smoothed walls, in this little house; and a long, winding passage leads up to the door. The roof is near the surface, so that the warm sun can shine on the hundreds of eggs inside, and hatch them.
The little crickets do not get their full growth till the third year. When full-grown, they are very strong, having been known to push forward a weight of six pounds with the front feet. They eat vegetables for the most part; but when they can get little else, they do not mind eating other insects. They generally work beneath the surface, and you cannot see them. But you can tell where they are by the withered patches in the garden stuff.
In the autumn they bury themselves deep down in the ground, to sleep through the winter, coming to the surface in the spring-time, ready to attack the vegetables.
D. E. H.