Page:Insects - Their Ways and Means of Living.djvu/85

 GRASSHOPPER'S COUSINS

Fro. 3o. The hand- some meadow grass- hopper, Orchelimum laticauda Upper figure, a male;
 * ower, a fema|e

the wings is marked by a brown spot at each corner. "J'hese little grasshoppers readily sing in con- finement, both in tae day and at night. Their music is very unpre- tentious and might easily be lost out of doors, consisting mostly of a sort, rustling buzz that ]asts two or three seconds. Often the buzz is preceded or followed by a series of clicks made by a slower movenlent of the wings. Frequently the player opens the wmgs for the start of the song with a single click, then proceeds with the buzz, and finally closes with a few slow movements that produce the con- cluding series of clicks. But very commonly he gives only the buzz

without prelude or staccato end- ing. Another com- mon member of the genus is the agile meadow grasshopper, Or- che/imum e«gi/e.

l ts music is said tobe a long zip, zip, zip, ze«-«-«-«, with the zip syl-

lable repeated many times. These two elements, the zip and zee, are charac- teristic of the songs of all the Orcheli- mures, some giving more stress to the first and others to the second, and

Fro. 3,. The slender meadow grasshopper, Conocephalus fasciatus, one of the smal|est members of the katy- did fami|y

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INSECTS