160 SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT 



covers are partially opened by a sudden jerk, and the notes produced 

 by the gradual closing of the same. The song consists of a series of 

 from twenty-five to thirty raspings, as of a stiff quill drawn across a 

 coarse file. There are about five of these raspings or trills per sec- 

 ond, all alike, and with equal intervals, except the last two or three, 

 which, with the closing of the wing-covers, run into each other. The 

 whole strongly recalls the slow turning of a child's wooden rattle, 

 ending by a sudden jerk of the same; and this prolonged rattling, 

 which is peculiar to the male, is invariably and instantly answered by 

 a single sharp " chirp " or " tschick " from one or more females, who 

 produce the sound by a sudden upward jerk of the wings. 



Both sexes are for the most part silent during the day, but during 

 the period of their greatest activity their stridulations are never for 

 an hour remitted, from the time the great setting sun hides behind 

 the purple curtains of the west till he begins to shed his scarlet rays 

 in the east — the species being so numerous that the sound as it comes 

 from the woods is one continuous rattling, not unlike the croaking of 

 the frogs, but set to a higher key. 



Mr. Scudder, who, in the article from which I have already quoted, 

 {ante^ p. 152,) gives an interesting account of the songs of some of our 

 Grasshoppers, and endeavors to set them to music, remarks, in speak- 

 ing of these Katydids, that they, " like the crickets, sing both by day 

 and night, but, unlike the latter, their day-song differs from that of the 

 night. On a summer's day, it is curious to observe these little crea- 

 tures suddenly changing from the day to the night- song at the mere 

 passing of a cloud, and returning to the old note when the sky is 

 clear. By imitating the two songs in the day-time, the grasshoppers 

 can be made to respond to either at will : at night, they have but one 

 note." I do not know of how many species this will hold true; but 

 with the Angular- winged species, I have noticed no particular differ- 

 ence in the day- and night-note, except in the greater intensity of the 

 latter. 



These insects make quite interesting pets, and if accommodated 

 with a good-sized cage will pursue their duties and their pleasures 

 almost as unrestrainedly as if in their native tree-tops. They are 

 capable of domestication to a certain degree, and become so accus- 

 tomed to the hand of their keeper that they will sit quiet while the 

 cage is being cleaned and fresh supplies of leaves introduced. They 

 are commendably neat in all their habits, flinging the excrement a 

 great distance away from them by means of the hind feet, and employ- 

 ing the intervals between feeding in incessant polishing of wings, legs 

 and antenna?. They brush their faces over with their front legs ex- 

 actly as a cat washes herself with her fore paws, an& they bestow as 



