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Male Cricket

Look at his wing covers.

See how they are ribbed.

Now look at this cricket Mabel has caught. It is a female, and its wings, you see, are not ornamented like those of the male.

Do you know the meaning of his heavily ribbed Why, his wing covers ments. See one of them wing covers? are his musical instrumagnified. spaces like so many It is divided into little drum-heads. The ridge that runs across the top of the wing is something like a file in structure.

When little Mr. Cricket is in the mood for chirping, he raises his wing covers and rubs them together.

This throws the stiff membranes of which the wing covers are made into vibration, and the result is the cheery call of our little black fairy.

Little Nell says the cricket is more like a brownie than a fairy, and maybe she is right.

You can easily see the crickets rub their wings together if you watch in the fall of the year. John says, Why do you have to watch in the fall of the year?

Now who can guess?