INSECTS 



apparently produced in some way by the wings themselves. 

 One of these, common through the Northern States, is 

 known as the cracker locust, Circotettix verruculatus, on 

 account of the loud snapping notes it emits. Several 

 other members of the same genus are also cracklers, the 

 noisiest being a western species called C. carlingianus. 

 Scudder says he has had his attention drawn to this grass- 

 hopper "by its obstreperous crackle more than a quarter of 

 a mile away. In the arid parts of the West it has a 

 great fondness for rocky hillsides and the hot vicinity of 

 abrupt cliffs in the full exposure to the sun, where its 

 clattering rattle re-echoes from the walls." 



The Katydid Family 



While the grasshoppers give examples of the more 

 primitive attempts of insects at musical production and 

 may be compared in this respect to the more primitive of 

 human races, the katydids show the highest development 

 of the art attained by insects. But, just as the accom- 

 plishments of one member of a human family may give 

 prestige to all his relations and descendants, so the talent 

 of one noted member of the katydid family has given 

 notoriety to all his congeners, and his justly deserved 

 name has come to be applied by the undiscriminating 

 public to a whole tribe of singers of lesser or very mediocre 

 talent whose only claim to the name of katydid is that of 

 family relationship. In Europe the katydids are called 

 simply the longhorn grasshoppers. In entomology the 

 family is now the Tettigoniidae, though it had long been 

 known as the Locustidae. 



The katydids in general are most easily distinguished 

 from the locusts, or shorthorn grasshoppers, by the great 

 length of their antennae, those delicate, sensitive, tapering 

 threads projecting from the forehead. But the two fami- 

 lies differ also in the number of joints in their feet, the 

 grasshoppers having three (Fig. 17 A) and the katydids 

 four (B). The grasshoppers place the entire foot on the 



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