KATYDIDS AND THEIR KIN. 215 



or more times. This preliminary note gives the 

 listener the impression that the musician is tuning 

 his instrument preparatory to the well known double 

 call which is soon begun and kept up almost contin- 

 uously from dark till dawn. 



Of this call, Mr. S. H. Scudder has written: u The 

 note of the true katydid, which sounds like Xr, has a 

 shocking lack of melody; the poets who have sung 

 its praises, must have heard it at the distance that 

 lends enchantment. In close proximity, the sound is 

 excessively rasping and grating louder and coarser 

 than I have ever heard from any of the Locustarians 

 in America or in Europe, and the Locustarians are 

 the noisiest of all Orthoptera. Since these creatures 

 are abundant wherever they occur, the noise produced 

 by them, on an evening especially favorable to their 

 song, is most discordant. Usually, the notes are two 

 in number, rapidly repeated at short intervals. Per- 

 haps nine out often will ordinarily give this number, 

 but occasionally a stubborn insect persists in sound- 

 ing the triple note 'katy-she-did' and as katydids 

 appear desirous of defiantly answering their neigh- 

 bors in the same measure, the proximity of a treble- 

 voiced songster demoralizes a w T hole neighborhood, 

 and a curious medley results. Notes from some indi- 

 viduals may then be heard all the while, scarcely a 

 moment's time intervening between their stridula- 

 tions some nearer, others at a greater distance so 

 that the air is filled by these noisy troubadours with 

 an indescribably confused and grating clatter." 



The " angular-winged katydid," Microcentrum lauri- 

 folium (L.), is another species which in the country is 



