INSECT VARIETY. 177 



alien nature. It is the tyj^e of indolence, often playing bnt on 

 one leg-, or alternately moving both four times forwards and back 

 wards with pauses of about nine seconds. Sometimes, however, 

 the overtures are prolonged; for, Yersin tells us, one note of 

 the male is always fuller and of a diifereut timbre from the rest, 

 *' In ! in ! in ! in ! in V These two notes which remind us of 

 the Piedmontese negative, together last about a second, and 

 the insect is .said to repeat them each twenty times without 

 taking repose. When in the presence of a female he kindles to 

 yet greater ardour. Then both femora simultaneously spring to 

 action aiad move concisely and with sufficient rapidity to raise a 

 feeble note recalling that in " m," which continues for about a 

 minute. But such tardy enthusiasm soon flickers and expires ; 

 for if the female should chance to abscond or an observer to 

 approach, the music afterwards is recommenced in the ordinary 

 dilatory fashion, first with one leg and then with the other. 

 As the male walks and eats the grass-leaves, he also emits 

 a sound scarcely audible, of less than half a second^s duration, 

 with one or the other femur, as if he found a satisfaction in 

 Srastronomv. Dr. Fischer in his work notates the music of this 

 grasshopper with the German breathing " Sch ! sch ! — sch ! 

 sch ! '''' in place of the nasal sound adopted by Yersin, but- he 

 gives no further particulars. Herr Vitis Graber enumerates 

 the femoral musical tubercles at two hundred, and finds them 

 transverse elliptical callosities, giving the little row somewhat 

 the appearance of the wing-files of the crickets and leaf-crickets. 

 To their number he attributes the loudness of the music. 



Stenohothrus dorsatas, Lett., another prattler of this group 

 indigenous to Northern and Central Europe and likewise occur- 

 ring in this country, commences its stridulation by drawing both 

 femora five times swiftly downwards, according to Fischer, with a 

 sharp sound, " Rrrt ! rrrt ! rrrt ! " they then move up and down 



to a gentler tune with somewhat this rhythm, " UU, UU !^' 



&c. Yersin says the male takes four simultaneous strokes of 

 the posterior legs, emitting as many short notes, " rreee ; " 

 these are followed by another which is different in character, 

 more acute and prolonged, produced by a rapid alternating 

 movement of the legs, " tzin.'^ The music does not last more 

 than a second or a second and a half, and commonly the individual 



M 



