Many insects are capable of emitting more or less musical sounds. In some countries these so-called singing insects are kept as pets, in other countries the same insects are voted a nuisance; it is all a matter of taste. Of all musical insects, the most noted is the Cicada and its sound organs are easily seen; they occur only in the male, for the female never sings. The Cicada belongs to the same great order of insects as the green fly, which we have already mentioned. There is one British species, and our readers who visit the New Forest may come upon it. On the under side of one of these insects the beak, very similar to the beak of the green fly, may be plainly seen. On either side of the insect, just below the bases of the wings there are two nearly round discs. These discs cover the sound organs, which are two ear shaped membranes. By means of muscles the insect can cause the membranes to vibrate and thus produce the sound which once heard, can never be forgotten. More easily found insects, in this country, at any rate, are the cricket and the grasshopper. The cricket we all know is a persistent songster. Let us examine him closely. We shall find, that the house cricket has two pairs of wings; the fore wings are leathery, the hind wings membranous. If we watch a male in the act of chirping, the male crickets like the male Cicadas are the songsters, we shall observe that he moves his wings slightly. If now we examine a dead male, we shall find, on the under surface of the forewing, a rough patch. Let us examine this patch under the microscope, it reminds us of nothing so much as a file: it is a file in fact, and sound is produced by rubbing this rough file against a ridge, which we can easily see, on the upper surface of the hind wing. It would be a useless accomplishment for the cricket to be able to sing, if there were no ears to hear its song. Nature has arranged that his song shall not go unheard and if we examine a female cricket, that is to say a cricket which has no sound-producing apparatus, we shall find an oval depression, covered by a membrane, on each of her front legs; these are her ears and they enable her to hear her mate calling to her. We have often heard the song of the grasshopper as we have walked through the fields and he too will occupy our time for a few moments. When he sings, he kicks his legs rather violently and this gives us a clue to the situation of his vocal organs. The inside of each of his hind thighs is ridged and the edge of each ridge is, as we can see if we magnify it, rough like a file. This file-like ridge is rubbed against a smooth ridge on the edge of the fore wing and the result is the familiar note of the grasshopper.