Joe W. Sing, age 11, of Visalia, Calif,, for his question:

Does a cricket have ears.?

This cheerful character tunes up at sundown. He is a member of a large orchestra which stretches over the lawns, across the fields and along the grassy roadsides. Soon the concert is going in full swing. Preep‑preep answers preep‑preep as far as you can hear. Countless crickets are singing the world to sleep ‑ or so it seems. The field cricket would tell you he is not singing a lullaby. He is singing to his mate. This fellow is about one inch long and dresses in shiny black. He has a pair of very long, strong back legs and he twitches a pair of amazingly long antennae. Folded over his back are two hard, shiny wing covers. Tucked under them are a pair of frail and useless wings. The cheerful chirping music is made when Mr. Cricket rubs the edges of his wing covers together.

Mrs. Field Cricket does not sing, she listens. And, of all places, her ears are in her legs. On the insides of her two front legs she has membranes that act as delicate hearing organs. The cheerful cricket concert that stretches clear across America is heard by countless lady field crickets.

There is also a common brown field cricket. This fellow is only half as big as the black field cricket. But his chirping is just as loud and cheerful. His music swells the huge cricket choir and little brown lady crickets listen with the ears in their front legs.

Field crickets live on the ground. The dainty, pale green tree cricket lives aloft in trees and bushes. His green color disguises him as a leaf and this fellow is seldom seen. But my, how he is heard. His cheerful chirrup‑chirrup swells the cricket choir from coast to coast.

Sad to say, no green lady crickets listen to the cricket choir. The cheerful musicians could play all night and the dainty green ladies would never hear a note. For these lady crickets have no ears at all, not in their round heads or on their delicate front legs.