INSECT VAUIETY. 179 



second to a second, and this is repeated as many as five times 

 at intervals of a second. The species disappears in August. The 

 music of another [Ste)iobothrus declivus, Bris.) is heard only in 

 South and Central Europe. It is described as very similar, low 

 and intense, and commences about the same period of the year. 

 Herr Vitis Graber g-ives the teeth in the lima of Stenohotkrus 

 petraetcs, Brisout — a grasshopper I am unacquainted with — as 

 numbering over one hundred and thirty. 



Opsoniala brachi/pterm , Ocskay, which is common on the 

 Alps and Jura, has an acute note approaching that of the leaf- 

 crickets, and lasting less than half a second ; a performance 

 nevertheless that is most feeble, owing to the shortness of the 

 elytra — " Ree." The music of Sfet/ieojjhi/ma variegatus, Sulzer, 

 likewise found on the Alps, normally consists of five notes, two 

 grave and short, lasting less than a second, one longer and 

 acuter, and then two others resembling the first — " Drrii, drrii, 

 iiiiiiiiiiiii, drrii, drrii.''' In the morning, when the male com- 

 mences his stridulation, only the grave note is heard. The 

 teeth in the lima of Staiironotus flavicosta, Fisch., Vitis Graber 

 gives as sixty-one. 



The Gomjihoceri are discriminated from other grasshoppers 

 by possessing a clubbed termination to the antennae, most 

 marked in the females, a character which also distinguishes 

 moths from diurnal butterflies. The species vibrate their 

 femora some time before the sound of stridulation is caught. 

 Gomphocenis sibiricus, an interesting species, is found, according 

 to Yersin, on the mountains near Vevey, at 1,500 metres above 

 the sea-level. The movement of the legs is short and rapid, 

 producing a note — '^ Tre, tre, tre, tre " — which is repeated two 

 hundred times at the rate of five to seven sounds a second. The 

 overture lasts from half a minute to a minute, but the last notes 

 of the series are often emitted lower, as if the grasshopper was 

 exhausted — " Ri, ri, ri.'''' Fischer says the music of this species 

 is lisping, and notates it as " Ts ! ts ! " Gomphocerus rufus, 

 L., will j)roduce a note resembling ^' Tiph ! tiph ! " the legs 

 oscillating at least ten seconds and ten times before the sound 

 is caught ; while the swift vibration of the femora causes the 

 music produced by twenty -four strokes to have a duration of only 

 fifteen seconds. When soliciting a female, his legs are jerked 

 M 2 



