410 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1923 



clearly stated that insects really do not sing; that is, not if the verb 

 " to sing " is to be used to refer only to the production of sounds 

 by the breath on vocal chords. The music of insects is all instru- 

 mental; but it has always been described as " singing," even by the 

 best entomologists, and we shall not here discard a term so conven- 

 ient, especially since the dictionaries allow its more liberal usage. If 

 then it is permitted to refer to an insect's music as its " song," by 

 the same license we may speak of its " voice," though no insect makes 

 truly vocal sounds. Likewise the word " note " is commonly used in 

 zoology to mean the sound produced by a bird or insect, and in 

 such connection does not signify a note on a musical scale. In strict- 

 ly technical writing, the sounds or notes made by insects are called 

 stridulations, from the Latin word stridere, meaning "to creak." 

 They are made by special stridulating organs. These organs mostly 

 correspond with the drum type of musical instruments in that they 

 consist of membranes (tympana) or other broad surfaces that give 

 forth sound by being set into rapid vibration. But there are two 

 methods of producing the vibration, one by the rubbing of one sur- 

 face on another, which may be likened to fiddling, and the other by the 

 direct action of muscles attached to the vibratory surface, a method 

 which has no counterpart in human organs or instruments. Finally, 

 with very few exceptions, it is only the males among insects that 

 sing or that have stridulating organs. This affords a suggestive 

 theme for comparative comment, but it is one already too much 

 dwelt upon by human writers, of the male sex, and we shall proceed 

 now with the special descriptions of our musicians, their music, and 

 their instruments. 



THE GRASSHOPPER FAMILY 



The grasshoppers belong to the family Acrididse of the order 

 Orthoptera. They are also designated the shorthorn grasshoppers 

 to distinguish them from grasshopperlike members of the katydid 

 family, or the longhorn grasshoppers, but they are more distinctively 

 called locusts, though this name is applied mostly to certain mi- 

 gratory species. In the United States, however, the term " locust " 

 has been given to the cicadas, resulting in much popular confusion 

 of identities. For example, those destructive insects called locusts 

 in the Bible are grasshoppers, related to our Rocky Mountain locust, 

 but in no way related to the insects we commonly call the 17-year 

 locusts, or to any other of the cicadas. 



Not many of the grasshoppers are musical. They are mostly sedate 

 creatures that conceal their sentiments if they have any; they are 

 awake in the daytime and they sleep at night — commendable habits, 

 but habits that seldom beget much in the way of artistic attainment. 



