Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/276

 has a very wide range, some being found from the central parts of the United States down to 32° S. lat., yet each distant region has its tolerably distinct local variety. But the effect of this general wandering habit of the group is, in the long run, a wide dissemination of the species; the formation of local varieties showing that the process is, nevertheless, a slow one. None of the species are found much beyond the tropics, but the genus is well represented within the tropical zone throughout the world; and an East Indian kind (C. Alemeone) is so nearly allied to a South American one (C. Statira), as to have been mistaken for it by some authors.

A strange kind of wood-cricket is found in this neighbourhood. The males produce a very loud and not unmusical noise by rubbing together the overlapping edges of their wing-cases. The notes are certainly the loudest and most extraordinary that I ever heard produced by an orthopterous insect. The natives call it the Tananá, in allusion to its music, which is a sharp, resonant stridulation resembling the syllables ta-na-ná, ta-na-ná, succeeding each other with little intermission. It seems to be rare in the neighbourhood. When the natives capture one they keep it in a wicker-work cage for the sake of hearing it sing. A friend of mine kept one six days. It was lively only for two or three, and then its loud note could be heard from one end of the village to the other. When it died he gave me the specimen, the only one I was able to procure. It is a member of the family Locustidæ, a group intermediate between the Crickets (Achetidæ) and the Grasshoppers