In the three families the sounds are differently produced. In the males of the Achetidæ both wing-covers have the same apparatus; and this in the field cricket (see Gryllus campestris, fig. 11) consists, as described by Landois,[1] of from 131 to 138 sharp, transverse ridges or teeth (st) on the under side of one of the nervures of the wing-cover.
This toothed nervure is rapidly scraped across a projecting, smooth, hard nervure (r) on the upper surface of the opposite wing. First one wing is rubbed over the other, and then the movement is reversed. Both wings are raised a little at the same time, so as to increase the resonance. In some species the wing-covers of the males are furnished at the base with a talc-like plate.[2] I here give a drawing (fig. 12) of the teeth on the under side of the nervure of another species of Gryllus, viz., G. domesticus. With respect to the formation of these teeth, Dr. Gruber has shown[3] that they have been developed by the aid of selection, from the minute scales and hairs with which the wings and body are covered, and I came to the same conclusion with respect to those of the Coleoptera. But Dr. Gruber further shews that their development is in part directly due to the stimulus from the friction of one wing over the other.
In the Locustidæ the opposite wing-covers differ from each other in structure (fig. 13), and the action cannot, as in the last family, be reversed. The left wing, which acts as the bow, lies over the right wing which serves as the fiddle. One of the nervures (a) on the under surface of the former is finely serrated, and is scraped across the prominent nervures on the upper surface of the opposite or right wing. In our British Phasgonura viridissima it appeared to me that the serrated nervure is rubbed against the rounded hind-corner of the opposite wing, the edge of which is thickened, coloured brown, and very sharp. In the right wing, but not in the left, there is a little plate, as transparent as talc, surrounded by nervures, and called the speculum. In Ephippiger vitium, a member of this same family, we have a curious subordinate modification; for the wing-covers are greatly reduced in size, but "the posterior part of the pro-thorax is elevated into a kind
