488 FAMILY VII. TETTIGONIIDyE. THE KATYDIDS. 



two somewhat different songs, or varies the same song in time or 

 extent of utterance, so that unless the same individual is listened 

 to for some time, the notes might be attributed to different 

 species." 



Kiley (1874, 155), as his figures show, confused M. rJiomhi- 

 foUum also with M. refiner re (Burrn.) and under the latter name 

 gave a full account of the habits of rhombi folium from which I 

 quote as follows: 



"The females commence to oviposit early in September, and continue 

 to lay at intervals until the first severe frost. The eggs are occasionally 

 deposited during the day, but the operation usually takes place at night. 

 The number of eggs laid at one time varies from two to 30, the first 

 batches containing more than those deposited later in the season. Each 

 female produces from 150 to 200, or perhaps more, and I have known them 

 to lay on the edge of a leaf, or of a piano-cover, or along a piece of cord. 



"These eggs are rather flat when laid, but become more swollen, so 

 that they have a narrower look as they approach the hatching period in 

 spring. During the early part of May, the embryo larva which lies 

 straight in its egg, completely filling it, with the legs bent up as in a 

 pupa, and the long antennae curling around them attains its full develop- 

 ment, and after hours of tedious contracting and expanding movements, 

 manages to burst the egg open at its top or exposed end, along the narrow 

 edge, and generally about half way down. Through this opening young 

 Katy slowly emerges, undergoing a moult during the process, and leaving 

 its first skin, in a crumpled white mass, attached to the empty bivalvular 

 egg shell. Including hind legs and antennae it measures at this time, 

 rather more than an inch in length, the body alone being one-eighth of an 

 inch long; and in contemplating it, one can not but wonder how the long, 

 stiff legs and great length of antennas, together with the plump body, 

 could so recently have been compressed into the comparatively small shell 

 to which we see it clinging. 



"In from ten to twenty minutes after hatching, these little beings 

 essay their first leaps, and soon begin to eat with avidity. They feed 

 with almost equal relish upon a great variety of foliage, but I have found 

 that when reared upon very succulent leaves, such as lettuce, cabbage, 

 purslain and the like, they are less hardy, and do not attain so great an 

 age as when nourished upon more ligneous food, as the leaves of oak, 

 apple or cherry. 



"The first notes of this katydid are heard about the middle of July, 

 and the species is in full song by the first of August. The wing covers 

 are partially opened by a sudden jerk, and the notes produced by the grad- 

 ual closing of the same. The song consists of a series of from 25 to 30 

 raspings, as of a stiff quill drawn across a coarse file. There are about 

 five of these raspings or trills per second, all alike, and with equal inter- 

 vals, except the last two or three, which, with the closing of the wing cov- 

 ers, run into each other. The whole strongly recalls the slow turning of 

 a child's wooden rattle, ending with a sudden jerk of the same; and this 

 prolonged rattling, which is peculiar to the male, is invariably and in- 

 stantly answered by a single sharp 'chirp' or 'tschick' from one or more 



