INSECT MUSICIANS — SN0IX5EASS 



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of smaller size. There are numerous species of the meadow grass- 

 hoppers, but most of them in the eastern part of the United States 

 belong to two genera known as Orchelimum and Conocephalus. The 

 most abundant and most widely distributed member of the first is 

 the common meadow grasshopper, Orchelimum vulgare. A male is 

 shown in Figure 15. He is a little over an inch in length, with head 

 lather large for his size, and with big eyes of a bright orange color. 

 The ground color of his body is greenish, but the top of the head 

 and thoracic shield is occupied by a long triangular dark brown 

 patch, while the stridulating area of the wings is marked by a brown 

 spot at each corner. These little grasshoppers readily sing in con- 

 finement, both in the day and at night. Their music is very un- 

 pretentious and might easily be lost out of doors, consisting mostly 

 of a soft, rustling buzz lasting two or three seconds. Often the buzz 

 is preceded or followed by a series of clicks made by a slower move- 

 ment of the wings. Frequently the player opens the wings for the 

 start of the song with a single click, then proceeds with the buzz, 



Fig. 15. — The common meadow grasshopper, Orchelimum vulgare, a member of the 



katydid family 



and finally closes with a few slow movements that produce the con- 

 cluding series of clicks. But very commonly he gives only the buzz 

 without prelude or staccato ending. 



Another common member of the genus is the agile meadow grass- 

 hopper, Orchelimum agile. Its music is said to be a long zip, zip, 

 zip, zee-e-e-e, with the zip syllable repeated many times. These two 

 elements, the zip and the zee, are characteristic of the songs of all 

 the Orchelimums, some giving more stress to the first and others 

 to the second, and sometimes either one or the other is omitted. 

 A very pretty species of the genus is the handsome meadow grass- 

 hopper, Orchelimum laticauda (or pulchellum) shown in Figure 16. 

 When at rest both males and females usually sit close to a stem or 

 leaf with the middle of the body in contact with the support and 

 the long hind legs stretched out behind. Davis says the song of 

 this species is a zip, zip, zip, z, z, z, quite distinguishable from that 

 of O. vulgare. 



Still smaller meadow grasshoppers belong to the genus Cono- 

 cephalus, more commonly called Xiphidium. One of the commonest 



