40 



leaves ; some are all points and pricks, and earn such names as 

 belphegoi; beelzehuth, etc. Scely?nena is semi-aquatic, and is furnished 

 with dilated tarsi to swim the better. 



The Locustodea are a very extensive section, and almost every 

 family has been worked out in excellent monographs. The Locus- 

 todea stridulate in a manner quite different from that of the Acri- 

 diodea. The basal part of the elytra of the male is modified ; the 

 left or lower elytron is turned to a drum-like-cell, bounded by 

 thickened veins, the centre occupied by a vibratile talc-like mem- 

 brane ; the right or upper elytron has the veins at this part hardened 

 and thickened ; by its friction on the lower the sound is produced. 

 Apparently the sound is only made when the bow moves forwards, 

 the return journey, so to speak, being silent. Only the modified 

 parts of the elytra, the basal parts, overlap, the remainder, when fully 

 developed, being folded in a roof-like manner, similar to the Acri- 

 diodea. The auditory organ is situated on the anterior tibiae. 



In many genera the elytra are so abbreviated that only this modified 

 part remains, and that only in the male. It is represented in the 

 female in such cases by a pair of small round lateral lobes. In the 

 MeconemidcC the male possesses no such musical apparatus, and in 

 the Ephippigeridce both sexes have it. The chirp produced is much 

 more shrill and sharp than in the Acridiodea, and often harsher and 

 more easy to hear. 



The delicate short-winged Phaneropteridce produce, as a rule, a 

 mere low tss tss that can be barely heard by human ears ; the Locus- 

 tidae, on the other hand, give a loud, harsh, and prolonged chirp that 

 betrays their whereabouts, so that they may be stalked down in spite 

 of their ventriloquial powers. On the cliffs at Dover, and in Central 

 Sweden, I have often followed up the clattering song of L. viri- 

 dissima (L.), but it always seems to recede as the collector approaches, 

 until at last it is run down to a thistle, and even then its green colour 

 assimilates so closely with the green plant that it is only the vibration 

 of the elytra that betrays it. 



Its cousin, Oncoftotus serviHei, F. de W., is less careful ; the song 

 is very similar to that of Z. viridissima, but in Wallachia I have 

 always found it on a tall thistle, on the plain stem, and not in the 

 thick foliage, where its black colour shows up conspicuously. The 

 female is harder to find ; I have only taken it once, crawling slowly 

 over long grass in the shade of a big tree in a forest clearing. It is 

 an unusually inactive insect, but possibly its conspicuous dark colour 

 and huge spiny pronotum protect it from its enemies. 



Allied to Z. viridissima is Z. cantans, Fuessly, a mountain insect, 

 which is shorter and thicker. I have taken it in Hungary, but only 

 in the penultimate instar. Z. caudata, Charp., is even larger than 

 our British species. I have taken the female in a wooded hill in 

 Bosnia. 



The wartbiter, Dediciis verrucivorus, L., is so common over all the 

 Continent that it is doubtless familiar to you all. In Sweden the 



