Crickets and Katydids, Concerts and Solos

From Mount Washington to the salt marshes of Cape Cod, a chorus of insects chirrups and peeps and rustles away the golden hours of summer and fall. In "Crickets and Katydids", Vincent G. Dethier invites readers to share in the pleasure offered by these tiny musicians in our midst. A companion volume to G.W. Pierce's 1948 "Songs of insects", this book introduces amateur naturalists and lovers of nature to some of the more common singing crickets, locusts, and grasshoppers of the northeastern United States. Dethier emphasizes the "world" of these insects and their place in it. He presents a glimpse of the ecology of the singing Orthoptera, the conditions under which they are studied, and the people who have studied them. For those who wish to delve more deeply into the classification, structure, and habits of particular species, Dethier includes keys for identification of insects and their songs, as well as a table of seasonal distribution.