MUSICIANS 263 



Thliboscelus camellifolius), he met with in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Obydos, Brazil. He says : 



" The notes are certainly the loudest and most 

 extraordinary that I ever heard produced by an 

 orthopterous insect. The natives call it the Tanana, 

 in allusion to its music, which is a sharp, resonant 

 stridulation resembling the syllables "ta-na-na, ta- 

 na-na," succeeding each other with little inter- 

 mission. It seems to be rare in the neighbourhood. 

 When the natives capture one, they keep it in a 

 wicker-work cage for the sake of hearing it sing. 

 A friend of mine kept one six days. It was lively 

 only for two or three, and then its loud note could 

 be heard from one end of the village to the other." 



It is not a true Cricket in spite of its name, but 

 a member of the Locustidse, which are intermediate 

 between the Crickets and the Grasshoppers. 



" The total length of the body is two inches and 

 a quarter ; when the wings are closed, the insect 

 has an inflated vesicular or bladder-like shape, 

 owing to the great convexity of the thin, but firm, 

 parchmenty wing-cases, and the colour is wholly 

 pale green. 



* The instrument by which the Tanana produces 

 its music is curiously contrived out of the ordinary 

 nervures of the wing-cases. In each wing-case the 

 inner edge, near its origin, has a horny expansion or 

 lobe ; on one wing this lobe has sharp raised mar- 

 gins ; on the other the strong nervure which 

 traverses the lobe on the other side is crossed by a 

 number of fine sharp furrows like those of a file 



