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Irving ]. Cantrall, who produced one of the best ecological studies of
orthopteroids, based upon his observations in Michigan (Cantrail 1943). One
should also mention the faunistic papers of Mills and Pepper (1938) on the
grasshoppers of Montana, and of J. W. H. Rehn (1939a, 1939b) on the
orthopteroids of Newfoundland, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, and Nova
Scotia. The important pioneer study by Tuck and Smith (1940) paved the
way for the study of eggs by Onsager and Mulkern (1963).
Returning now to consider Canadian authors, we should first note the
contributions of Gooderham (1917, 1918) to the study of the orthopteroids
of Nova Scotia, and the monograph of Piers (1918) for the same province.
The latter was not superseded until that of Vickery (1961) was published.
In Quebec, DuPorte (1919) began publishing on Gryl/us pennsylvanicus
Burmeister. On the opposite side of Canada, Ernest R. Buckell (later
associated with R. C. Treherne) began about 1918 to take a particular interest
in the orthopteroids of British Columbia (Buckell 1920-1937; Treherne and
Buckell 1924), while, in the middle of the country, Norman Criddle had
already made and was continuing to make valuable observations upon the
behavior, habitats, and life histories of prairie species in Manitoba. His
observations, too few of which were actually published, have provided models
for subsequent workers. His pioneer studies have seldom received due credit,
at least beyond the limits of the Canadian prairies. Much regarding Norman
Criddle will be found in the history of his remarkable family (A. Criddle
1973). Of his published papers, which included several relating more
particularly to injurious species, we will mention here only that on the field
crickets and those on the immature stages of grasshoppers (N. Criddle 1924,
1925, 1926b, 1931). It was not until Handford (1946) made detailed studies
of immature stages of Melanoplus species in the West that further significant
work was published in this field.
In the middle years of the present century, E. M. Walker and Urquhart
(1940) and Urquhart (1938, 1940a, 1941a, 1941b, 1941c, 1941d, 1942) made
further valuable contributions to our knowledge of the distribution and
ecology of the orthopteroids of southern Ontario, and Chagnon (1944a,
1944b, 1947, 1948) and Beaudry (1952, 1954) wrote on Quebec species.
Urquhart and Beaudry (1953) reported the discovery of the European "bushcricket,"
Metrioptera roeselii (Hagenbach) in the Montreal area, and, in the
West, Brooks (1958) produced his important monograph of the acridid
grasshoppers of the southern parts of the Canadian Prairie Provinces.
It was during the middle 1950s, also, that R. S. Bigelow, at the authors'
institution, began his studies in experimental taxonomy related to field
crickets, particularly of the genus Gryllus in North America, which continued
after he had left Canada. These investigations, together with the studies of
R. D. Alexander at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, clarified the
taxonomic status of the Canadian and northern United States species, long
since questioned by N. Criddle (1925). A new species of field cricket, Acheta
[now Gryllus] veletis, which matures in spring and early summer, instead
of in late summer and early autumn, was recognized (R. D. Alexander and
Bigelow 1960). Of greater significance than the formal recognition of this
species, l,owever, was the hypothesis of "allochronic speciation" which
resulted f' om the work and which became of considerable importance in
evolutiona:y theory.
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