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Handbook of Nature-Study 



THE KATYDID 



Teacher's Story 



"7 love to hear thine earnest voice 

 Wherever thou art hid, 

 Thou testy little dogmatist, 

 Thou pretty katydid, 



Than mindest me of gentle folks, 

 Old gentle folks are they, 

 Thou say'st an undisputed thing 

 In such a solemn way." 



HOLMES. 



ISTANCE, however, lends enchantment to the song of 

 the katydid, for it grates on our nerves as well as on 

 our ears, when at close quarters. The katydid makes 

 his music in a manner similar to that of the cricket 

 but is not, however, so well equipped since he has 

 only one file and only one scraper for playing. As 

 with the meadow grasshoppers and crickets, only the 

 males make the music, the wings of the females being 

 delicate and normally veined at the base. The ears, 

 too, are in the same position as those of the cricket, 

 and may be seen as a black spot in the front elbow. 

 The song is persistent and may last the night long: "Katy did, she didn't 

 she did." James Whitcomb Riley says, "The katydid is rasping at the 

 silence," and the word rasping well describes the note. 



The katydids are beautiful insects, with green, finely veined, leaf-like 

 wing-covers under which is a pair of well developed wings, folded like 

 fans; they resemble in form the long-horned grasshoppers. The com- 

 mon northern species (Cyrtophyllus) is all green above except for the 

 long, delicate, fawn-colored antennae and the brownish fiddle of the male, 

 which consists of a flat triangle just back of the thorax where the wing- 

 covers overlap. Sometimes this region is pale brown and sometimes 

 green, and with the unaided eye we can plainly see the strong cross-vein, 

 bearing the file. The green eyes have darker centers and are not so large 

 as the eyes of the grasshopper. The body is green with white lines below 

 on either side. There is a suture the length of the abdomen in which are 

 placed the spiracles. The insect breathes by sidewise expansion and 

 contraction, and the sutures rhythmically open and shut; when they are 

 open, the spiracles can be seen as black dots. The legs are slender and the 

 hind pair, very long. The feet are provided with two little pads, one on 

 each side of the base of the claw. In the grasshopper there is only one 

 pad which is placed between the two hooks of the claw. The female has 

 a green, sickle-shaped ovipositor at the end of the body. With this she 

 lays her flat, oval eggs, slightly over-lapping in a neat row. 



The katydids are almost all dwellers in trees and shrubs ; although I 

 have often found our common species upon asters and similar high weeds. 

 The leaf -like wings of these insects are, in form and color, so similar to the 

 leaves that they are very completely hidden. The katydid is rarely dis- 

 covered except by accident; although when one is singing, it may be 

 approached and ferreted out with the aid of a lantern. 



The katydid,when feeding, often holds the leaf or the flower firmly with 

 the front feet, while biting it off like a grazing cow, and if it is tough, 

 chews it industriously with the sidewise working jaws. A katydid will 

 often remain quiet a long time with one long antenna directed forward 

 and the other backward, as if on the lookout for news from the front and 



