108 THE CANADIYN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



THE SONG OF THYREONOTUS. 



BY WILLIAM T. DAVIS, STATEN ISLAND, N. Y. 



Mr. Samuel H. Scudder, in the Report of the Ontario Entomological 

 Society for 1892, gives an interesting account of the "Songs of Our 

 Grasshoppers and Crickets," and kindly permits the stridulations of a 

 number of Staten Island insects to be heard mid the general medley. 

 There is, however, an additional songster to be added to this list, as 

 appears from the following. 



On the 26th of last June I heard in a moist pasture, on the north 

 shore of the Island, a stridulation that was unknown to me. It much 

 resembled that produced by Orchelimwn vtilgare, with the preliminary 

 zip, zip, omitted. It was a continuous z e e e, with an occasional short ik, 

 caused by the insect getting its wing-covers ready for action after a period 

 of silence. It was too early for Orchelimwn vulgare by about a week; at 

 least I have never heard one on the Island before the fourth of July; so 

 in the present instance I made careful search for the musician. In due 

 time I discovered, in a tussock of rank swamp grass, the brown songster 

 perched on a dead leaf, and receiving the evidently welcome rays from 

 the afternoon sun. It was Thyreonotus pachymerus, and in the swampy 

 field about me I heard others of its kind, so that this individual was only 

 one of a considerable colony. 



A failure to make proper use of his legs (the wings are abortive), 

 resulted in the transfer of Thyreonotus from the tussock to a tin can. At 

 home I made a bowery for him in a larger tin can covered with netting, 

 into which was introduced a branch of the coriaceous leaved post oak, and 

 when the leaves dried, there were innumerable nooks and crannies 

 wherein to hide. Usually, however, the insect did not hide at all, but 

 perched himself on one of the topmost leaves and there waved his antennae 

 after the manner of all long-horned Orthoptera. Starting with rasp- 

 berries, he had the rest of the fruits in their season, including watermelon, 

 of which he showed marked appreciation. If I offered him a raspberry, 

 and then gradually drew it away, he would follow in the direction of the 

 departing fruit and would finally eat it from my hand. 



As the bowery was kept in my bed room, I had the full benefit of the 

 songs of its occupant, and was often awakened in the night by his sud- 

 den, alarm like outburst of melody. He stridulated with unabated zeal 

 to the first of August, when I noticed that his energies were lagging — he 



