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ANNUAL REPOET SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1923 



species, the slender meadow grasshopper, C. fasciatus, is shown 

 in Figure 17. It is less than an inch in length, the body is 

 green, the back of the thorax dark brown, 

 the wings reddish-brown, and the back 

 of the abdomen marked with a broad 

 brown stripe. Allard says the song of 

 this little meadow grasshopper may be 

 expressed as tip, tip, tip, tseeeeeeeeeeeeee, 

 but that the entire song is so faint as almost 

 to escape the hearing. Piers describes 

 it as plee-e-e-e-e-e-, tzit, tzit, tzit, tzit. 

 Like the song of Orchelimum vulgare it 

 apparently may either begin or end with 

 staccato notes. 



THE SHIELD BEARERS 



Another large group of the katydid 

 family is the subfamily Decticinae, mostly 

 cricketlike insects that live on the ground; 

 but they have wings so short (fig. 18) 

 that they are poor musicians and can 

 claim but passing notice here. They 

 called " shield bearers " 

 back plate of the 

 first body segment is more 

 or less prolonged like a 

 shield over the back. Most 

 of the species live in the 

 western parts of the United 

 States where the indi- 

 viduals sometimes become 

 so abundant as to form 



large and very destructive bands. One such 



species is the Mormon cricket, Anabrus simplex, 



and another is the Coulee cricket, Peranabrus 



scabricollis (fig. 18), of the dry central region 



of the State of Washington. The females of 



these species are commonly wingless, but the 



males have short stubs of front wings that 



retain the stridulating organs and enable them 



to sing with a brisk chirp. 



Still another large subfamily of the Tettigoniidse is the Khadopho- 



rinae, including the insects known as camel crickets. But these are 



all wingless, and therefore silent. 



are 

 large 



because 



Fig. 16. — The handsome 

 meadow grasshopper, 

 Orchelimum laticauda. 

 Upper, a male ; lower, a 

 female 



Fig. 17. — The slen- 

 der meadow grass- 

 hopper, Cono- 

 cephalus f a s c i - 

 at us, one of the 

 smallest members 

 of the katydid 

 family 



