Page:Insects - Their Ways and Means of Living.djvu/75

 says the notes "are sharp, snapping crepitations and sound like the slow snapping of the teeth of a stiff comb as some object is slowly drawn across it." He represents them thus: tek-ek-ek-ek-ek-ek-ek-ek-ek-ek-ek-tzip. But, however the song of Microcentrum is to be translated into English, it contains no suggestion of the notes of his famous cousin, the true katydid. Yet most people confuse the two species, or rather, hearing the one and seeing the other, they draw the obvious but erroneous conclusion that the one seen makes the sounds that are heard.

The smaller angular-winged katydid, Microcentrun retinerve, is not so frequently seen as the other, but it has similar habits, and may be heard in the vines or shrubbery about the house at night, its song is a sharp zeet, zeet, zeet, the three syllables spaced as in ka-ty-did, and it is probable that many people mistake these notes for those of the true katydid.

"The angular-winged katydids are very gentle and unsuspicious creatures, allowing themselves to be picked up without any attempt at escaping. But they are good flyers, and when launched into the air sail about like miniature airplanes, with their large wings spread out straight on each side. When at test they have a comical habit of leaning over sidewise as if their fiat forms were top-heavy.

We now come to that artist who bears by right the name of "katydid," the insect (Fig. 24) known to science as Pterophylla camellifolia and to the American public as the greatest of insect singers. Whether the katydid is really a musician or not, of course, depends upon the critic, but of his fame there can be no question, for his name is a household term as familiar as that of any of out own great artists, notwithstanding that there is no phonographic record of his music. To be sure, the cicada has more of a world-wide reputation than the katydid, for he has representatives in many lands, but he has not put his song into