OF WASHINGTON, VOLUME XIII, 1911. 85 



Xipliidion /asciatuni is a persistent singer by day and also 

 at night. Individuals confined in my room sang persistently 

 throughout the night as well as by day. Even in the quiet of 

 the room their notes were barely audible 7 or 8 feet away. 

 The stridulations are among the faintest produced by any lo- 

 custid known to me. 



Piers in Nova Scotia has very accurately described the 

 stridulations of this Xiphidion. He says: "It frequents damp 

 situations and numbers were observed among the rank marsh 

 grass on Marsh Lake at Sackville, N. S., on Novembers, 1895." 

 At another time he says: "One observed in September produced 

 a song which may be represented thus: plee-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e, 

 tcit, tcit, tcit, tcit." 



This Xiphidion is a common insect at Thompson's Mills, 

 north Georgia. Here niy first record of its notes during the 

 summer of 1909 was on July 31. During a walk in the low 

 grounds of East Washington, D. C., on October 31, numbers 

 of these insects were singing in the grass. 



Around Washington, D. C., Xipliidion nemorale (Scudder) 

 is a common insect. Th's form prefers the grass and weeds 

 of fields in dry, upland situations nearly everywhere. Al- 

 though this species usually dwells in the grass and herbage 

 close to the ground, it is not infrequently found 5 or 6 feet 

 from the ground in bushes bordering fields. This insect is 

 common in the scanty grass in nearly every dry, upland, 

 sunny spot on Plummer's Island, Maryland. Its song is strik- 

 ingly unlike that of Xiphidion f asciatuni. It begins with a 

 number of brief staccato lisps, succeeding each other so rapidly 

 as to produce an almost continuous sound. These are fol- 

 lowed by from 2 to 32 brief phrases, tseeeeee-tseeeeee-tseeeeee, 

 rapidly repeated. In the song of Xiphidion fasciatnm, the 

 staccato notes precede each lisping monotone, tseeeeee, which 

 is considerably prolonged. The stridulations of Xiphidion 

 nemorale are briefer, more hurried, and insistent than those 

 of fascia futn. One individual of A*, nemorale sang 60 phrases 

 in a minute; another sang persistently 145 phrases in one 

 minute. This species is most noisy during hot, sunny days. 



The stridulations of Xiphidion ullardi, a new species re- 

 cently named by Mr. Caudell, are rather strikingly different 

 from the notes of either of the preceding species, as no stac- 

 cato lisps precede the lisping phrases. Its song consists of 

 weak, lisping, more or less prolonged phrases ssssss-ssssss-ssssss, 

 in tone quality recalling the song of Orchelimum minor. I 



1 "Preliminary Notes on the Orthoptera of Nova Scotia", by Harry 

 Piers. In Proceedings and Transactions of Nova Scotia Institute of 

 Science, vol. IX, 1895-96. 



