38 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS [Jan., 'il 



matter to locate and capture one of these insects on the topmost 

 branches of a maple. The writer heard a few of these katy- 

 dids on Fort Hill as late as September 20, 1910. 



At this season when the nights were coolest the notes of this 

 katydid were so slowly and difficultly delivered that they had 

 become almost painfully rasping and grating in character. One 

 dark, windy night the writer spent an hour or more trying to 

 locate a male in the top of a lofty maple. By the aid of lighted 

 matches the position of the insect was located. The insect was 

 so benumbed with cold that it could barely rasp its tegmina 

 upon each other. 



Scudder says that its stridulation "has a shocking lack of 

 melody * * * so that the air is filled by these noisy trou- 

 badours with an indescribably confused and grating clatter." 



In many respects autumn is a particularly favorable season 

 for the study of musical insects. Insects are very susceptible 

 to changes of temperature. Many musical insects, which in 

 midsummer stridulate almost entirely after dark, gradually 

 cease their nocturnal stridulations as the autumn nights become 

 colder. Day by day, as the season advances, and the chill of 

 evening becomes more noticeable, the musical katydids and 

 crickets usher in their chorus a little earlier each afternoon, 

 until practically all the nocturnal singers are in full chorus 

 shortly after midday. At Oxford, Mass., the writer entered 

 the following notes in his journal concerning lower tempera- 

 tures and insect stridulations. 



September 15, 1910, "following recent rains the nights have 

 become very cold. They would be almost silent but for the 

 slow, painful raspings of a few individuals of Cyrtophyllus 

 perspicillatus and the synchronal music of Oecanthus niveus. 

 Amblycorypha rotundifolia becomes quite silent, or at least 

 barely audible if the nights are not too cold. Conocephalus 

 ensiger is less sensitive to the cold and continues to stridulate 

 persistently, even after Amblycorypha rotundifolia has been 

 silenced by the evening chill. 



Insects which I heard almost entirely after dark a few weeks 



