73 



but the song of the latter has never been described as far as I know * ; perhaps he means 

 that of C. nebrascensis, which is described by him, as above, in the same paper and which 

 it certainly resembles, to judge from the description. He says further that C. rohvMus 

 *' lives both upon trees and in the 'grass ; but while its song may be heard in the grass 

 while the sun is high, I have never heard it from trees until after dark." 1 have never 

 found it in Massachusetts except in grass or in corn-fields. 



Davis says of it on Staten Island that it " resides for the most part mid the grass on 

 sandy ground near the sea shore, though an occasional individual finds its way inland. 

 Along the sea beach they stridulate in early afternoon, especially if slightly cloudy, and 

 when approached they have a curious fashion of dropping to the ground." 



Conocephaliis exiliscanorits Davis. "Its stridulation," says Davis, " as well as its 

 form, resembles that of ensiger more than any other native Oonocephalus. We canno^^ 

 count with any accuracy in ensiger the number of times one wing is drawn over the other 

 as indicated by the rise and subsidence in the song, but exiliscanorus is such a slow singer 

 that this estimate can be easily made, one wing being rubbed on the other about one hun- 

 dred and fifteen times in a minute." And in another place : " The sound produced when 

 stridulating is very faint, not louder than that made by Gryllus abb'-eviatus, and I was 

 much surprised to hear such a faint song come from so large an insect. I have, in conse- 

 quence of this faint song, named it the ' slightly musical " Oonocephalus." 



Orclielimum nigripes Scudd. McNeill says the song of this species " is difiicult to 

 distinguish with certainty from that of vulgare, but usually the zip-zip is repeated once or 

 twice very rapidly and the ze-e-e-e-e does not continue so long. The earliest recorded date 

 for it here [Illinois] is the 1st of August." 



Orchelimum silvaAicum McNeill. " Its stridulation," says McNeill, " is quite distinct 

 from that of vulgare. It consists of the same two elements, but the zip is repeated many 

 times very rapidly so as to make almost a continuous sound and the ze-e-e-e is compara- 

 tively short and very constant, lasting about eight seconds. The first part of the song 

 lasts from three to five seconds." 



Orchelimum volantum McNeill. McNeill says of this : " The song has a new note 

 in it. It may be represented as follows : zip-zip kr-ze-e-e kr-ze-e-e, the last part of the song 

 not lasting more than a half to three- quarters of a second and is always preceded by the 

 sound which I represent imperfectly by kr." 



Orchelimum vulgare Harr. With Scudderia angusfAfolia this is the earliest Locus- 

 tarian to sing in northern New Hampshire ; one year it sang there for the first time on July 

 28 ; the following year I heard it in the vicinity of Boston July 1 5. 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 the 

 stalk that they may not interfere with the movement of the tegmina. Its song is more com- 

 plicated than that of our other Locustarians. Beginning with ts it changes almost instantly 

 into a 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 abruptly with p. This strain is followed 

 by a series of very short staccato notes sounding like jip ! repeated at half second intervals ; 

 the staccato notes and the trill alternate ad libitum. The staccato notes may be continued 

 almost indefinitely, but are very rarely heard 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 or three times when the phrase is not repeated. I have known it to be entirely omit- 

 ted, even before the repetition of a phrase. The interval between the last jip ! and the 

 recommencement of the phrase never exceeds one quarter of a second. 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. 



•Davis says of C. dissimilis : " I have found this iinect stridulating when its head was gone, picked 

 off perhaps by some vagrant chick I" 



