THE relatively mild and sunny weather we have experienced this autumn has given me the opportunity to look at some wonderful insects which are not only beautiful to look at but have the most melodic song.

I am talking, of course, about grasshoppers and bush cricket which can still be heard singing from banks of long grass or during the evenings at the edges of woodlands.

I often get asked: "What is the difference between a grasshopper and a cricket?".

Both the grasshoppers and crickets belong to a family of insects known as the orthoptera, which also includes such as stick insects, cockroaches and earwigs.

You are very unlikely to come across a true cricket, with most species being restricted to warmer climates. The only examples found in Britain are in the far south. The two exceptions are the house cricket, which is limited in habitat to heated buildings or in sewerage or rubbish tips, and the mole cricket, which is an extremely rare and secretive animal, living buried beneath light and heavy soils in water meadows and heathlands.

What we are more likely to recognise as crickets are, in fact, bush crickets.

These can be told apart from grasshoppers by their long antennae, which are at least as long as the body of the insect itself, while grasshoppers have only short, stubby, antenna.

Bush crickets also differ from grasshoppers in their diet, as they are ferocious predators, even eating grasshoppers and sometimes feeding on other bush crickets.

Both bush crickets and grasshopper do sing and it is possible to identify individual species of both bush crickets and grasshoppers on the particular type of song they produce.

It is generally only the male that sings. However, in some species the female may have a much less elaborate song.

Bush crickets sing by rubbing their fore-wings together, while grasshoppers rub pegs on their legs against their hind wings.

Life as a bush cricket or grasshopper is often perilous.

Many creatures feed on these insects, including the ferocious Agelena labyintice spider which produces large, funnel-like webs, which snares young grasshoppers.There is even a bizarre fungus which can attack these creatures.

When a spore of this particular fungus comes into contact with a grasshopper or bush cricket, it sticks to the outside of the insect, then spouts a tendril, which enters the grasshopper through one of its breathing holes, where it slowly starts taking hold of the inside of this unfortunate creature, eventually controlling its mind and causing the hapless creature to climb up a tall stem and, when it reaches the top, cling on tightly - and then die.

At this point the fungus sprouts fruiting bodies through the skin of the creature, which then release more spores into the air, which attempt to search out another victim.