THE CRICKET.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 9 May 1925, Page 16

THE CRICKET.

IllS MUSICAL BOX. Among the’ beasts a tale is told How a poor cricaet ventures nigh His door to catch the sun’s warm gold And saw a radiant butterfly. She passed with tails -thrown proudly back And long gay rows of crescents blue Brave yellow stars and bands of black, The loveliest fly that ever flew. “Ah, fly away,” the hermit said, “Day long among your flowers to roam; ’ Nor daisies white not roses red Will compensate my lowly home.’’ True, all too true! There came a, storm And caught the fly within its flood, Staining her broken * velvet form And covering her wings with mud. The cricket, sheltered from the rain. Chirped, and looked on with- tranquil eye: : * For him the thunder pealed in vain, The gale and torrent passed him by.' Then shun the world, nor fake your fill Of any of its joys or flowers; A lowly fireside, calm and still, At least will grant you tearless hours.” (Bv “Hori” for tile Smile C bis tie.) • Have you noticed crickets on the increase about our countryside '? Until the other day it was sometime since 1 nad seen one, although tney were very plentiful in South Taranaki at one time, and in summer would be frequently heard chirping tueir song, or, as the naturalist habre in bis book of insects describes it, “scraping on their fiddles.”

wike all things of real value, says this lover of nature, the musical box of tha cricket is very simple. It is based on the same' principle as that of the grasshopper: a bow with a hook to it, and a vibrating membrane. The right wing case overlaps the left and covers •■it almost completely, except where it j iolds back sharply and encases the iii- | seat’s side. It is the opposite arrangement from that which* we find in I the green grasshoppers and their kins- ; men. The cricket is right-handed, the others left-handed. 'Hie two wing eases are made in exactly the same way. To know one j s to* know the other. They lie flat on the insect’s back, and slant suddenly at the side in a right-angled fold, encircling the body with a delicately veined pinion. | These wing cases are crossed by faint wrinkles. These two spaces are the I sounding ■ boards or drums. The skin is finer here than elsewhere, and transparent. At the hinder edge of the ‘front part are two Curved, parallel veins, with a cavity between them. This cavity contains five or six little black wrinkles that look like the rungs of a tiny ladder. They supply friction : they intensify the vibration, by increasing the number of points touched by the bow. On the lower surface one of the two veins that surround the cavity of the rungs becomes- a rib cut into the shape of a book. This is the bow. It is provided with about 150 triangular teeth of exquisite geometrical regular? ity. It is a fine instrument indeed. The hundred and fifty teeth of the bow, , biting into the rungs of the opposite wing case, set the four drums in motion at one and the same time, the 'over pair by direct friction, the upper pair by the shaking of the friction apparatus. The cricket with hjs four drums throws his music to a distance of some hundreds of yards.