The Wonderful Ways of Insects and Spiders [ 257 



You may see them constructing a central hall, excavating a 

 system of tunnels, cleaning themselves with tongue and front 

 legs they do this repeatedly and sometimes lying down to sleep, 

 their legs pulled close to the body. It is important to have a queen 

 in your colony otherwise the activities of the captives will show a 

 far from complete story of life in an anthill. 



How to Take Care of Captive Ants: The care of ants is rather 

 simple. The soil should be kept moist by inserting water through 

 the opening at least once a week; the insects' home should not be 

 left in bright sunlight or near a radiator. A drawer or closet is a 

 good place to keep them when you are not watching them. A 

 drop of honey should be supplied every few days, as well as a little 

 solid food, such as tiny morsels of mashed walnuts, apples, bananas, 

 and bits of dead insects. 



GRASSHOPPERS AND THEIR Music 



Katydids Fiddlers, Not Singers: Katydids have become so closely 

 identified with this name because of their insistent refrain Katy 

 did, no she didn't, that people sometimes forget these insects are 

 also grasshoppers. The grasshoppers are divided into two groups: 

 the short- and long-horned families. The "horns" (really the 

 antennae) are considered long if they are nearly as long as, or 

 longer than, the insect's body. Katydids belong to the long-horned 

 group. 



A child hearing them on a summer night may refer to their 

 "singing," but "fiddling" is a better word for their kind of music. 

 A male katydid the females only listen rubs its left wing over 

 the right wing. The left wing has a file-like row of ridges, while 

 the right wing has a hard little scraper just behind the shoulder 

 where the wings overlap; the rubbing of the wings produces the 

 fiddling sound. 



Fiddlers All: It is the broad-winged or leaf-winged katydid that 

 plays its name with insistent repetition. The large oblong-winged 

 tree katydid has a refrain of Zzzzzz-Ipswich; the fork-tailed bush 

 katydid plays a slow zeep-zeep-zeep now and then; and the com- 

 mon meadow katydid fiddles several soft zees in a row, each faster 

 than the one before, and then hits and holds a high zeee. 



