362 REPORT OF STATE GEOLOGIST. 



nature, into the crevices of loose bark, or into the soft stems of 

 woody plants. They are of a dark slate color, about 6.5x3 mm. in 

 size, very flat, pointed at each end, and with the edges beveled off 

 or emarginate. 



Sub-family CONOCEPHALIN^. 



Vertex projecting forward and upward in the form of a tubercle 

 or cone, sometimes blunt, sometimes much prolonged. Prosternum 

 toothed or with two slender spines. Fore tibias without apical spines. 

 Front coxffi (in our genera) with a spine on the outside. Wing covers 

 seldom expanded in the middle, often shorter than the abdomen, and 

 in color either green or brown. Shrilling organ of male well devel- 

 oped, the cross-vein prominent, the color light brown, with the cen- 

 tral portion transparent (except in the genus Conoceplialus). Hear- 

 ing organs present near the base of fore tibiae. Ilind legs usually 

 stout and much thickened at the base, as the insects seldom fly, but 

 are active leapers, and very difficult to capture. 



The eggs arc deposited between the stems and root leaves of grass, 

 in the pith of twigs, or sometimes in the turnip-shaped galls so com- 

 mon on certain species of willow. The ovipositor, being thus used 

 as a piercer, has in time developed into a slender and sharp-pointed, 

 instrument which is but little curved and is frequently of excessive 

 length, in some species being over twice as long as the remainder of 

 the body. 



To this sub-family belong those slender-bodied green grasshoppers, 

 with long, tapering antennas which are so common in summer and 

 early autumn in damp meadows and prairies and along the margins 

 of -streams, ditches and ponds. They are mostly terrestrial in their 

 habits, but one or two of the larger ones ever being found in trees. 



The color of their bodies corresponds closely with that of the 

 stems and leaves of the sedges and grasses among which they dwell, 

 and so protects them from the sight of the few birds which frequent 

 a like locality. Their songs, produced in the same manner as those 

 of their larger cousins, the katydids, are as frequent by day as by 

 night, but are usually soft and low in comparison with those of the 

 former. Their day song differs from that of the night, and, says 

 Scudder, "It is curious to observe these little creatures suddenly 

 changing from the day to the night song at the mere passing of a 

 cloud and returning to the old note when the sky is clear. By 



