1 84 STUDIES IN LIFE AND SENSE. 



present case to the sterner sex, and thus reverse the order of things 

 in higher existence. 



The sound-producing apparatus in these insects consists of a 

 peculiar modification of the wings, wing-covers, and legs. Thus the 

 grasshopper's song is due to the friction produced by the first joint of 

 the hind leg (or thigh) against the wing-covers or first pair of wings 

 a kind of mechanism which has been aptly compared to a species 

 of violin -playing. On the inner side of the thigh a row of very fine 

 pointed teeth, numbering from eighty to ninety or more, is found. 

 When the wing-covers or first wings are in turn inspected, their ribs 

 or " nervures " are seen to be very sharp and of projecting nature, 

 and these latter constitute the " strings," so to speak, of the violin. 

 Both " fiddles " are not played upon simultaneously ; the insect first 

 uses one and then the other, thus practising that physiological 

 economy which is so frequently illustrated by the naturalist's studies. 

 Some authorities, in addition, inform us that the base of the tail in 

 these insects is hollowed so as to constitute a veritable sounding- 

 board, adapted to increase the resonance of the song. And this 

 latter faculty is still more plainly exemplified in certain exotic insects 

 allied to the grasshoppers ; these foreign relations having the bodies 

 of the males distended with air for the purpose of increasing and in- 

 tensifying the sound. Again, whilst, as already remarked, it is the 

 gentlemen-insects which produce the sounds, there exist a few cases 

 in which the lady-insects appear to emulate the violin- playing instincts 

 of their mates. 



The locusts are perhaps the most notable singers of their order. 

 The locust's song has been heard distinctly at night at a mile's distance 

 from the singers. In North America the katydid (Cyrtophyllus con- 

 cavus\ a well-known species of locust, is so named from the peculiar 

 sound of the song, which closely resembles the words " katy-did-she- 

 did," and a writer describes this insect as beginning its "noisy 

 babble " early in the evening as it perches on the upper branches of 

 a tree, " while rival notes issue from the neighbouring trees, and the 

 groves resound with the call of katy-did-she-did the livelong night." 

 In the locusts, the two front wings (or wing-covers, as they are called, 

 from their function of protecting the hinder and serviceable wings) 

 produce the song. The right wing is the fiddle, the left serving as 

 the bow. A special rib on the under side of the latter is finely 

 toothed, and is rubbed backwards and forwards over the upper ribs 

 of the right wing, thus producing the chirp. When the crickets are 

 examined, the disposition of the wing-covers is seen to resemble that 

 of the locusts, but with the difference that both wing-covers have the 

 same structure, each being alternately used as violin and bow. Of 

 the grasshopper tribe, the locusts have perhaps attained to the highest 

 pitch of musical efficiency ; the grasshoppers themselves come next 



