Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 May 2012
In Chap. X of the Descent of Man, Darwin says that when the male of Gryllus campestris is chirping, “first one wing is rubbed over the other, and then the movement is reverse.” I have carefully observed several hundred males of our native Gryllus, and it seems to me that one tegmen (“wing”) is always uppermost. This is, at first sight, a very minor point, but it leads to some rather interesting thoughts.
* There seem to me to be more fundamental differences between Gryllotalpa, Grylloides and Gryllus than between Gryllus and the Lacustidæ