INSECT IlSrSTRUMENTALISTS — ALLARD 579 



crepitating clicks which I have already described as being one of 

 the most remarkable accomplishments of any katydid known, be- 

 cause it is veritably a tapping upon the individual bars of its chitin 

 xylophone to produce its music. These slow, clicking notes may be 

 heard throughout all the parks and in the street trees everywhere in 

 the city of Washington during August and much of September. 



SONGS OF THE KATYDIDS OF THE SUBFAMILY DECTICINAB 



The katydids of this subfamily are large, peculiar-looking insects, 

 with usually very short tegmina or wing covers. They are known 

 as the shield bearers, because the hind portion of the pronotum is in 

 some instances greatly prolonged backward to cover the basal seg- 

 ments of the abdomen. Nature was anxious either to make this group 

 musicians or to keep them musicians. If evolution has been with 

 them a process of reducing the wing covers from structures that were 

 once longer, this reduction has progressed to the very seat of the 

 musical organs themselves, these alone remaining. The males have 

 only the shrilling or musical organs left as hints of wings. In spite 

 of this modification they are musical enough and shuffle off long, 

 irregular notes sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh when they please. There is 

 much to be learned of the habits and songs of these interesting dark- 

 hued katydids, and a fine field for original study of their musical 

 habits is open to close-observing field naturalists west of the Missis- 

 sippi River, where the main distribution of this subfamily apjDears 

 to center. 



SONGS OF THE MOLE CRICKETS, SUBFAMILY GRYLLOTALPINAE 



These odd crickets are known as mole crickets because they burrow 

 like moles in the soil and are very rarely seen. In most instances 

 they appear to have the chirping habit of stridulation, producing 

 low-toned, deep, gruff chirps — grrrr — grrr — grrrr, oftentimes in wet, 

 marshy habitats. Many people may have heard these notes at their 

 feet, but the chances are that the notes were attributed to frogs ; for 

 how rarely does the layman know frogs from crickets as they sound 

 their presence to his ears? In truth, the observant Thoreau, excellent 

 field naturalist that he was, mistook the notes of these crickets for the 

 voices of frogs, and did not learn of his mistake for many years. 

 Gilbert White, in England, likened the notes of the European mole 

 cricket, GinjUotalfa gryllotal'pa^ which is now established in eastern 

 America, to the callings of the nightjar, a bird of the whippoorwill 

 family. Kirby and Spence noted the same likeness. Scudder, speak- 

 ing of the mole cricket, G. hexadactyla, stated that the pitch of the 

 chirps was above middle C. So far as my own observations go, its 

 notes have the lowest pitch of any cricket notes I have ever heard, 

 but tonality is present, as in all cricket sounds. 



