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A strange kind of wood-cricket is found in this neighbourhood, the males of which produce a very loud and not unmusical noise by rubbing together the overlapping edges of their wing-cases. The notes are certainly the loudest and most extraordinary that I ever heard produced by an orthopterous insect.
The great carnivorous water-beetle, the dytiscus, after catching and eating other creatures all day, with two-minute intervals to come up, poke the tips of its wings out of the water and jam some air against its spiracles, before descending once more to its subaqueous hunting-grounds, will rise by night from the surface of the Thames, lift again those horny wing-cases, unfold a broad and beautiful pair of gauzy wings, and whirl off on a visit of love and adventure to some distant pond, on to which it descends like a bullet from the air above.
This is what the Twelve-spotted Crioceris does, occupying the same quarters as the Field Crioceris, from whom she differs in size, being rather larger, and still more in her costume, which is rusty red all over, with twelve black spots distributed symmetrically on the wing-cases.
They lay in rows on a bed of moss; one might almost have supposed that unclean life yet survived in the little black insects. They were an unfamiliar species to Cairn, being covered with unusually long, black hair, except upon the root of the wing-cases where they were of brilliant orange. "The perfect pupæ of this insect are extremely rare," added Ferrara informatively. "Indeed?" replied Cairn.
To eat Cicadae and sugar is not possible in every part of the country. In the north, where she abounds, the Green Grasshopper would not find the dish which attracts her so strongly here. She must have other resources. The Beetle is accepted without hesitation. Nothing is left of him but the wing-cases, head and legs. These examples teach us enough.
In the crickets the wing-cases are symmetrical; both have straight edges and sharply-scored nervures adapted to produce the stridulation. A distinct portion of their edges is not, therefore, set apart for the elaboration of a sound-producing instrument. In this family the wing-cases lie flat on the back of the insect, and overlap each other for a considerable portion of their extent.
At least, I think of them as such when I encounter them rushing thither and yon over the face of the earth, crawling up mountains and flying through the air, their shiny wing-cases flashing in the sun and the sound of their progress making a buzz in the newspapers. Well! as I said, it was curious.
Other species of the family to which the Tanana belongs have similar stridulating organs, but in none are these so highly developed as in this insect; they exist always in the males only, the other sex having the edges of the wing-cases quite straight and simple. The mode of producing the sounds and their object have been investigated by several authors with regard to certain European species.
Then on the under surface of the body, at the base of the abdomen, there is a transverse orifice in the shelly skin, covered with a delicate membrane, which glows with a strong ruddy light; visible, however, only when the wing-cases are expanded.
After a few seconds of this bath of heat and light, the insect half-opens his wing-cases, using them as levers, and turns over, ready to take flight if my hand did not instantly snap him up. He is a passionate lover of the light, a devotee of the sun, intoxicating himself in its rays upon the bark of his blackthorn-trees on the hottest afternoons.
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