New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 471 



The song of niveus is one of the most conspicuous and musical of 

 the insect sounds commonly noted in late summer and autumn. 

 It can be heard from the time the insects commence to mature — 

 early in August in this latitude — until they succumb to frosts of 

 late October or early November. The song begins at the approach 

 of darkness and continues until morning. Occasionally a few of 

 the insects may be heard during the middle of day when the weather 

 is very cloudy. The song consists of a monotonous series of clear, 

 high-pitch trills rhythmically repeated for an indefinite length of 

 time. The quality is that of a clear, mellow whistle and has best 

 been described by the words, treat — treat — treat. The pitch varies 

 somewhat with the temperature but on an ordinary summer evening 

 it is about C, two octaves above middle C, or on a warm evening 

 it may reach as high as D. The rapidity of the notes is directly 

 dependent on the temperature. On a very warm night we counted 

 155 beats per minute, while on a cool night the number was only 64. 



The song of different individuals may vary also in quality, intensity, 

 pitch and rapidity of notes. There is, however, a tendency for the 

 insects in a restricted site — as a raspberry plantation, clump of 

 bushes or a single tree or a small clump of trees — to sing in unison 

 in one synchronous movement. 



MATING HABITS. 



In addition to their musical qualities the males possess another 

 alluring device to attract the females. This is a gland situated on 

 the metanotum, which becomes exposed at the time the forewings 

 are raised in the act of singing. Externally this structure appears 

 as a rounded depression, with elevated margin, which contains 

 numerous hollow, glandular hairs, and also two pairs of openings 

 from much branched internal glands. When a female approaches 

 the singing male, he turns his head away from her, when she usually 

 mounts his back and partakes of the secretion of the gland. (Plate 

 XXIX, fig. 1.) The male now stops singing and stands with his legs 

 widely extended and wings raised to an angle of about 45 degrees. 

 He appears to be in a state of great excitement, as shown by the 

 twitching and swaying of the body and a peculiar jerky movement 

 of the hind wings which lay folded along the abdomen. The 

 antennae are also waved about wildly and often thrown back so 

 as to cross and rub against those of the female. The latter eagerly 



