INSECT INSTRUMENTALISTS ALLAED 577 



SONGS OF THE KATYDIDS PHANEROPTERA, AMBLYCORYPHA, AND 

 MICROGENTRUM, SUBFAMILY PHANEROPTERINAE 



In this subfamily fall many of our largest and finest katydids as 

 judged by their elegant forms, their size, the exquisitely leaf-like 

 nature of their wing covers, and other features. In the genus Phan- 

 eroptera and the closely related Inscudderia^ we have trim, narrow- 

 winged forms, the Phanervptera. partial to the low herbage zone, 

 but, strangely enough, the Inscudderias are confined almost entirely 

 to the green crowns of the Cypres,s trees, Taxodimn distichum. 

 The species of Phaneroptera are, in my judgment, the least musically 

 inclined of all our katydids, and in most instances appear to have 

 lost the habit of frequent, persistent rasping. Now and then they 

 rasp out a keen incisive zeet, or three successive phrases, zeet, zeet, 

 zeet, and let it go at that, perhap,s for minutes or hours. Rarely 

 have I found them sitting down to the serious business of rasping 

 off so many methodical notes per minute, like tuned-up organic 

 machines bent upon a fixed number per minute of revolutions or 

 scraper-strokes. The Phaneropteras " sing " at irregular periods 

 and infrequent intervals, in moods which no one but their own race 

 can understand. In some instances, however, they have learned to 

 vary their notes, as I have reported in the case of the Texan bush 

 katydid, Phaneroptera texensis. This katydid can produce at will 

 a loose wing shuffle, sounding the phrase sh-sh-sh-sh, occasionally 

 repeated and rather soft and silken, or it can produce a loud, rasping, 

 incisive zeet-zeet-zeet^ slowly delivered. In our preceding analysis 

 of the technique of stridulation, I have indicated what the single 

 stroke does, and what a rapid succession does in the synthesis of the 

 chirp or rasp. These two notes simply represent both methods as 

 isolated accomplishments, but interesting enough, having no con- 

 stant relation to each other in a definite song, as in the case of the 

 meadow katj^dids, Orchelimum and Conocephahis. 



In the genus AmUycorypha we have a highly developed musical 

 technique, which in the case of the little Uhler's katydid surpasses 

 the musical accomplishments of any katydid in our country in the 

 complexity of its ,song. The round- winged katydid, A. rotundifolia, 

 merely lisps at intervals a leisurely silken monotone sh-sh-sh-sh-sh, 

 these lisping phrases being of no definite length. In the last analysis 

 it is but a slow movement of the scraper over the file- vein at uncer-' 

 tain intervals and for indefinite periods of time. The big oblong- 

 winged katydid, A. ohlongi folia, expends much less energy in song, 

 it would seem, for its rasps though strong and incisive are repeated 

 at the rate of only 15 to 20 per minute. Each phrase, sounding 

 something like it-z-zic — it-z-zic, appears to be made by only two or 

 three rapid strokes of the scraper. 



