ORTHOPTERA. 89 



way ahead of the proud genus Homo, and the fleas have 

 no preliminary training for such extraordinary feats, either. 

 Of the six families composing the order, three are 

 silent and do not leap, though there are some extraor- 

 dinary runners among them ; and the other three families 

 both sing and leap. This music is all night music, how- 

 ever ; for if a katydid were to betray his whereabouts while 

 the birds are astir, there wquld not be left enough of him 

 to tell the tale. This singing is done in different ways 



FiG. 36. A short-horned grasshopper. (Kellogg.) 



by different members of the order. When the locust 

 sings at rest, it is rasping the inner surface of the broad 

 hind thighs across the roughened surface of the front wings 

 as they lie close to the sides of the body, much as one 

 draws a knife across a whet-stone, only back and forth. 

 When the locust rattles as he goes whizzing through the 

 air, he is striking the front margin of the hind wings back 

 and forth over the hind margin of the front wings. When 

 the cricket sings on the hearth, he is holding up his front 

 wings at an angle of about forty-five degrees, and is rub- 

 bing together the specially modified surfaces of their 

 basal regions. The tree crickets, the katydids, and the 

 meadow-green grasshoppers have much the same musical 

 apparatus as have the crickets. This insect method of 

 making sound is called stridulation. 



