108 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 
The Katydid is nearly one and a half inches long, and 
its wings when expanded are about three inches wide. Its 
wings are of a pale green, and its wing-covers of a dark 
green color, which, however, fades away and becomes brown 
when the insect is dead and dried. This change of color 
may be prevented, as I have before mentioned in regard to 
the Gryllus Carolina, by taking out its intestines imme- 
diately after death, and filling the abdominal cavity with 
cotton, which is easily done by making a longitudinal in- 
cision through the under part of the hind-body with a sharp 
penknife. 
The wing-covers are interwoven with veins resembling 
those of a leaf, and in the males have a hard, glassy mem- 
brane at the base of each, which is shaped somewhat like a 
human eye, and which, being rubbed together by the saw- 
ing-like motion of their wing-covers, produces the sound 
peculiar to this insect. The poor females are destitute of 
these musical organs, and are consequently obliged to keep 
silence and listen to the music of their lords; but they are 
provided with a formidable-looking sword-like ovipositor at 
the extremity of the abdomen, with which they pierce holes 
in the ground for the purpose of depositing their eggs. 
These eggs are generally laid in the fall, and are hatched 
out in the ensuing spring. 
A very close and interesting observation of the conduct 
of these insects may be made every autumn by putting a 
pair of them into a wide glass vessel, having the bottom 
covered with turf, which, however, must be sprinkled with 
water every day. As soon as the evening begins the female 
will commence laying her eggs and depositing them in the 
eround, and the male will announce in loud tones that Katy- 
did-it. If you preserve these eggs in the turf through the 
winter, and open them in the following spring, you will 
find the insect in a perfect condition, except being destitute 
of wings. It is a very singular fact, and shows the gener- 
