INSECT INSTRUMENTALISTS ALLARD 575 



and their tiny relatives, the species of Conocephalus^ have far sur- 

 passed the coneheads and all the crickets in establishing new formal- 

 isms in their " songs." The crickets and coneheads have established 

 their songs mainly on the basis of uniform time-relations, making 

 the rate of repetition of the sound-stroke of the scraper upon the file 

 vein more or less specific for each species. They trill in long, dreamy, 

 monotones, or chirp or rasp in more or less rhythmic accents, but 

 there are no interminglings of the two elements. Should a cricket 

 with the tinkling bell-tones of the jumping tree cricket, Orochmi'S 

 saltator, adopt the varied time relations of the big meadow katydid, 

 OrchelmnuTii vulgare, in its chirpings, combining a series of clear 

 vibrant single-stroke chirps with a brisk, quavering, monotone trill, 

 we should find our mechanical insect music of a very superior order 

 of rendition, and showing striking analogies with the vocal renditions 

 of some of our warblers and sparrows. Even as their accomplish- 

 ments stand to-day, the enlivening jingling trill of the chipping 

 sparrow is scarcely more involved than the trillings of some of the 

 crickets, and the song of the grasshopper sparrow is decidedly insect- 

 like in its delivery and intonation. 



SONGS OF THE TRUE KATYDIDS, PTEROPHYLLA, SUBFAMILY 

 PSEUDOPHYLLINAE 



The classic katydid singer of our poetry is the big arboreal fellow, 

 Pterophylla camellifolia. He is the maker of those mysterious 

 raucous chatterings in the trees which have made the nighttime sweet 

 and companionable to many a human soul acquainted with the poetry 

 of country life. Who among us can not say with Oliver Wendell 

 Holmes, 



I love to hear thine earnest voice, 



Wherever thou art hid, 

 Thou testy little dogmatist, 



Thou pretty Katydid ! 



" For there is no sadness in the earth's minstrelsy," as C. V. Riley 

 once wrote. The gods alone made the katydids, and let us hope man 

 will not have any reason to destroy them soon ; man may make towns, 

 but the countryside and its crickets and katydids are the musings of 

 the gods themselves. It is to the musical insects that I owe much 

 of my love of poetry ; yes, and truth as I would measure it in terms 

 of my science. I am a better scientist because I have known katy- 

 dids and their nocturnal accents in New England, " squa-wak', 

 squa-wa-wak'j" as Snodgress has so aptly interpreted it. The weird 

 musings of these leaf -winged creatures bent upon an " egotistic love 

 of song," as Scudder saw the murmurings of the crickets, inspired 

 Henry S. Cornwell to take up his sonnet lyre and create a worthy 

 Petrarchan sonnet " To the Katydid." Some one once asked what 



