Handbook of Nature-Study · Lesson LXXXII · Topic 11: Grasshoppers, crickets and cockroaches
82. The black cricket
Goal: Your child can describe the field cricket, find its ears and the mother's egg-laying tube, and explain how the male makes music.
You'll need
- A field, lawn edge or garden with stones or boards to lift
- A clear jar or a glass lamp chimney, a flowerpot of grass, and netting
- A slice of apple or melon rind
- A hand lens (magnifying glass)
- A nature notebook and a pencil (colored pencils if you have them)
What's in the book
Comstock's essay on the black crickets as musicians of the hearth and field, then Lesson LXXXII: leading thought, a method with directions for a cricket cage made from a flowerpot and a lamp chimney, and eight questions. A poem follows, then a short story of the snowy tree-cricket.
The lesson, step by step
When and where
Late summer and fall, when field crickets sing. Look under stones, boards and logs at the edge of fields and gardens. Lift a stone by its far edge, tipping it toward you, so anything underneath runs away from you, and put it back gently.
A cricket home for a few days
Comstock's cage: a flowerpot with grass or clover planted in it, a lamp chimney pressed into the soil, and netting over the top. A large clear jar with soil, grass and a cloth cover works too.
Add a slice of apple and keep it out of hot sun. After a few days, let the crickets go where you found them.
Keep the big idea in mind
Comstock's "leading thought" is the one idea the lesson is meant to lead to. Read it to yourself now, and save it to share at the end, after your child has looked and answered:
The crickets are among the most famous of the insect musicians. They live in the fields under stones and in burrows, and feed upon grass and clover. As with the song birds, the male only makes music; he has his wing-covers developed into a mandolin or violin, which he plays to attract his mate and also for his own pleasure.
Shiny black
Is the covering of the cricket shining, like black patent leather, or is it dull? What portions are dull? Of what use do you think it is to the cricket to be so smoothly polished?
Where did you find the crickets? When you tried to catch them, how did they act? Did they fly like grasshoppers or did they run and leap?
The music
Note the cricket when he is playing his wing mandolin to attract his mate. How does he make the noise? Can you see the wings vibrate?
Do the black crickets chirp in the day-time or after dark? Do they chirp in cold or windy weather, or only when the sun shines?
Mothers and ears
The mother has a long, thin tube at the tip of her body.
Why does the mother cricket need such a long ovipositor? Where does she put her eggs in the fall to keep them safe until spring?
Look in the tibia, or elbow, of the front leg for a little white spot. What do you suppose this is?
It is the cricket's ear. Then read the leading thought aloud.
Nature notebook
Draw a father cricket and a mother cricket side by side: label the wings, the long antennæ, the ear on the front leg, and her ovipositor.
Afterwards
Right after this lesson the book describes the pale green snowy tree-cricket and says its lesson "may be adapted from that on the black cricket." On a warm night, count a snowy tree-cricket's chirps for 14 seconds and add 40: the answer is close to the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit.