384 REPORT OF STATE GEOLOGIST. 



the leaves and stems of the ironweed, Vernonia fasciculata Michx., so 

 common in many blue-grass pastures. 



"The poetry of earth is never dead: 



When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, 



And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run 



From hedge to hedge about the new mown mead; 



That is the gi-asshopper's— he takes the lead 



In summer luxury, he has never done 



With his delights; for when tired out with fun 



He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed." 



Vulgare seems to be somewhat carnivorous in habit, as, on two 

 occasions, I have discovered it feeding upon the bodies of small 

 moths which in some way it had managed to capture; while on an- 

 other date I surprised a female on the flowers of a golden-rod, feast- 

 ing upon a soldier l)eetle, ChnuUognaihus pennsylvanicus DeG. 



Of the call note of the male vulgare Scudder has written: "When 

 about to sing on a hot. sunny day, the male mounts a stalk of grass 

 to about a foot from the ground where it clings with its four front 

 legs, allowing its hind legs to dangle on either side of the stalk that 

 they may not interfere with the movements of the tegmina. Be- 

 ginning with Is it changes almost instantly to a trill of zr; at first 

 there is a crescendo movement which reaches its volume in half a 

 second; the trill is then sustained for a period varying from one to 

 twenty seconds (generally from six to eight seconds), and closes ab- 

 ruptly witli p. This strain is followed by a series of very short 

 staccato notes souiuling like jip, jip, jip, repeated at half second in- 

 tervals; the staccato notes and the trill alternate ad libitum. The 

 staccato notes may l)e continued almost indefinitely, but are very 

 rarely lieard more than ten times in direct succession; it ordinarily 

 occurs three or four times before the repetition of the phrase, but 

 not more than two (u- three times when the phrase is not repeated. 

 The night song differs from that of the day in the rarer occurrence 

 of the intermediate notes and the less rapid trill of the phrase; the 

 pitch of both is at B flat." 



Kedtenbacher places rulgare as a synonym of DeGeer's XipMdium 

 agile, stating as liis reason for so doing that Harris and Scudder have 

 separated the two "on account of small differences in the color and 

 size of the wing covers, as well as in the length of the ovipositor." 

 He may be right in thus combining them, but his relative measure- 

 ments of X. agile as given, do not agree with the specimens of un- 

 <loubted vulgare in my possession. Scudder, who has had ample op- 

 portunity to compare the two, says (Bost. Journ. Nat. Hist. VII 



