Ill 



more times. This preliminary note gives the listener the impression that 

 the musician is tuning his instrument, preparatory to the well known 

 double call which is soon begun and kept up almost continuously from 

 dark till dawn. 



Of this call Mr. Scudder, says: "The note, which sounds like xr, 

 has a shocking lack of melody: the poets who have sung its praises 

 must have heard it at the distance that lends enchantment. In close 

 proximity the sound is excessively rasping and grating, louder and 

 hoarser than I have heard from any other of the Locustarians in Amer- 

 ica or in Europe, and the Locustarians are the noisiest of all Orthop- 

 tera. Since these creatures are abundant wherever they occur, the noise 

 produced by them, on an evening specially favorable to their song, is 

 most discordant. Usually the notes are two in number, rapidly re- 

 peated at short intervals. Perhaps nine out of ten will ordinarily give 

 this number; but occasionally a stubborn insect persists in sounding the 

 triple note — ( ' Katy-she-did') ; and as Katydids appear desirous of de- 

 fiantly answering their neighbors in the same measure, the proximity of 

 a treble-voiced songster demoralizes a whole neighborhood, and a curious 

 medley results ; notes from some individuals may then be heard all the 

 while, scarcely a moment's time intervening between their stridulations, 

 some nearer, others at a greater distance ; so that the air is filled by these 

 noisy troubadours with an indescribably confused and grating clatter." 



According to Eiley the eggs are thrust, by means of the sharp oviposi- 

 tor, into crevices and soft substances, and probably, in a state of nature, 

 into the crevices of loose bark, or into the soft stems of woody plants. 

 They are of a dark slate color, about 6.5x2 mm. in size, very flat, pointed 

 at each end, and with the edges beveled off or emarginate; The song has 

 been heard in Putnam county as early as August 5th, and a single female 

 was captured in Lake county on October 15th, so that the species proba- 

 bly exists more than two months in the mature state. 



It was to this species that Oliver Wendell Holmes addressed the well 

 known lines : 



" I love to hear thine earnest voice 

 Wherever thou art hid, 

 Thou testy little dogmatist, 

 Thou pretty Katydid." 



Coxocei'halin.i:. 

 Vertex projecting forward and upward in the form of a tubercle or 

 cone, sometimes blunt, sometimes much prolonged. Presternum toothed 



