352 PROCEEDINGS: BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 
distance of a quarter-mile or even farther when a number of 
individuals are performing in chorus. It is repeated at short 
intervals for hours together, from early dusk to dawn. It may- 
be heard frequently even in the middle of the day on warm 
cloudy days and late in the season. 
Scudder speaks of it as follows: " The note, which sounds like 
XT, 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 excess- 
ively rasping and grating, louder 
and hoarser than I have heard from 
any other 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 specially favorable to their 
song, is most discordant. Usually 
the notes are two in number, rapidly 
repeated at short intervals. Perhaps 
nine out of ten will ordinarily give 
this number; but occasionally a stub- 
born insect persists in sounding the 
triple note — ('Katy -she-did'); and 
as katydids appear desirous of defi- 
antly answering their neighbors in 
the same measure, the proximity of 
a treble-voiced songster demoralizes 
Fig. 52.— The Katydid, Pterophyiia ^ whole neighborhood, and a curious 
camelli folia. Dorsal view. (After 
Lugger.) medley results; notes from some 
individuals may then be heard all 
the while, scarcely a moment's time intervening between their 
stridulations, 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 Katydid is an arboreal insect, living in colonies in groves 
of trees about houses, in parks, or locally in parts of extensive 
