Page:Insects - Their Ways and Means of Living.djvu/81

 more commonly than three, and the sounds were extremely harsh and rasping, being a loud squă-wǎk′, squǎ-wǎk′, squă-wǎk′, the second syllable a little longer than the first. This is not the case with those that say ka-ty. When there were three syllables the series was squǎ-wă-wăk′. If all New England katydids sing thus, it is not surprising that some New England writers have failed to see how the insects ever got the name of "katydid." Scudder says "their notes have a shocking lack of melody"; he represents the sound by xr, and records that the song is usually of only two syllables. "That is," he says, " they rasp their fore wings twice rather than thrice; these two notes are of equal (and extraordinary) emphasis, the latter about one-quarter longer than the former; or if three notes are given, the first and second are alike and a little shorter than the last."

When we listen to insects singing, the question always arises of why they sing, and we might as well admit that we do not know what motive impels them. It is probably an instinct with males to use their stridulating organs, but in many cases the tones emitted are clearly modified by the physical or emotional state of the player. The music seems in some way to be connected with the mating of the sexes, and the usual idea is that the sounds are attractive to the females. With many of the crickets, however, the real attraction that the male has for the female is a liquid exuded on his back, the song apparently being a mere advertisement of his wares. In any case the ecstacies of love and passion ascribed to male insects in connection with their music are probably more fanciful than real. The subject is an enchanted field wherein the scientist has most often weakened and wandered from the narrow path of observed facts, and where he bas indulged in a freedom of imagination permissible to a poet or to a newspaper reporter who wishes to enliven his chronicle of some event in the daily news, but which does not contribute anything substantia] to our knowledge of the truth.