406 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1923 



stillness reeking with moisture. On such a night, perhaps, toward 

 the middle of July, as you may be meditating on nature's mightier 

 forces, suddenly, from a near-by tree or shrub, you hear a voice, 

 or the semblance of one, which says : treat, treat, treat, treat, regular 

 repetitions of the one note 140 times a minute. Over there it is 

 echoed by another, and over yonder by another. The next night still 

 more join in, and soon the very atmosphere vibrates to that monoto- 

 nously measured beat. This is the music of the snowy tree cricket, 

 first of the summer chorus to arrive upon the stage. 



A few nights later another sound cuts across the rhythmic concert, 

 a longer, purring note, sad and melancholy in tone as if from some 

 complaining spirit of the night, a soft burr-r-r, prolonged about two 

 seconds and repeated at intervals of equal length. This is the song 

 of the narrow -winged tree cricket, a cousin of the snowy. Repre- 

 sentatives of his species likewise come on in greater numbers every 

 evening till soon the nightly chorus is a blend of treats and burrs. 



Then, to add to the confusion, several other bands arrive that 

 strike up long unbroken trills, continued for many seconds or several 

 minutes and immediately begun again. The chorus of the snowy 

 and the narrow-winged now falls into the background and individual 

 voices are lost as the entire concert becomes a ringing and shrilling 

 arising at twilight, increasing with darkness, so invisibly linked 

 with the oncoming shadows that it seems almost to be an emanation 

 from the night itself. The trillers are also tree crickets, relations 

 of the snowy and the narrow- winged, all members of the genus called 

 Oecanthus. One of them is distinguished as the black-horned or 

 striped tree cricket, another as the four-spotted, and a third as the 

 broad- winged. The last is the loudest singer of them all. 



As the hot weather waxes and the steamy nights of midsummer 

 close in, some evening there will be heard from the lower branches 

 of a tree just outside the door or from the vines about the porch a 

 sharp tzeet, tzeet, tzeet, shrill notes quickly repeated perhaps a dozen 

 times in succession but less rapidly and less sharply toward the end 

 of the series. This is the song of the angular-winged katydid, not 

 the true katydid, not that great singer of the forests, but a relation 

 of his of larger stature, though of lesser talent. 



Along with the angular-winged katydids come other members of 

 the katydid family. Amongst them are the coneheads, sharp-headed, 

 grasshopperlike insects, one of which, common in Maryland, makes a 

 long continuous whirr of a very shrill tone and in a key so high that 

 some human ears are not attuned to hear it at its highest pitch. An- 

 other utters a series of little notes like tic, tic, tic, repeated indefinitely. 

 There is also another who is one of the noisiest of all American insect 

 singers, his song being an extremely loud, shrill buzz of such volume 

 that it can be heard from long distances. But this artist is so partial 



