Anita Bauer. age 12, of Denver. Colorado
How does a cricket chirp
Summer is filled with music, The caroling birds that woke up with the morning ease off in the heat of the day, Then you can hear the cheerful insects chirping in the grass, We may get a short bird choir in the early evening again, Then the frogs begin their solemn chorus along with the soprano chirps of the crickets. the grasshoppers and the katydids,
The cricket is cousin to the grasshopper, the katydid, the cockroach and that stalky insect called a walking stick. They all belong to the prthopteras straight‑winged family of insects, Not all of the cousins can chirp. Those cheerful chirrups of a summer's evening may be coming from a grasshopper, a katydid or a cricket, And each of these sings in his own way.
These singing cousins each has two pairs of amazing wings. The front pair, from which the family gets its name, is long and straight‑edged. The second pair is wide and gauzy. When at rests it is folded under the front wings like a pleated fan. The singing cousins use their wings for more than flying. Each uses them in his own way to make his cheerful chirp.
The grasshopper is known for his sturdy, back jumping legs. He uses one of these legs as a violin bow. The leg is rubbed over the edges and hard veins of the wings. The leg acts as a violin bows the wing veins and edges act as violin strings and the air pockets in the folded wings act as a sounding box. So it was the grasshopper who invented the violin. He was using it to seranade his lady love millions and millions of years before human beings came to live in the world.
The katydid fiddles to his lady without a bow. He uses only his hard outer wings and his gauzy inner wings. There is a little saw along the edges of the outer wing and a tough vein on the inner wing. Saw and vein rub together as the katydid lifts and closes his wings. The gauzy inner wings folded and pleated, act as a sounding board to magnify the sound. We hear it as katy‑did, katy‑did, katy‑did. Sometimes the little musician changes‑his wing stroke and we hear an occasional katy‑didn't The little dark