Robert Evans Snodgrass

“ Yet occasionally a glimpse may be had of the musician as he plays, most frequently standing head downward, the body braced rather stiffly on the legs, the front wings only slightly elevated, the tips of the hind wings projecting a little from between them, the abdomen depressed and breathing strongly, the long antennal threads waving about in all directions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ An endless number of tunes may be played upon the same fiddle. With the insects each musician knows only one tune, or a few simple variations of it, and this he has inherited from his ancestors along with a knowledge of how to play it on his inherited instrument. The stridulating organs are not functionally developed until maturity, and then the insect forthwith plays his native air. He never disturbs the neighbors with doleful notes while learning.
Very curiously, none of the katydids nor any member of their family has the earlike organs on the sides of the body possessed by the locusts. ”

“ The principal groups of insects are the orders. The grasshopper and its relatives constitute an order; the beetles are an order; the moths and butterflies are another order; the flies another; the wasps, bees, and ants still another. The grasshopper's order is called the Orthoptera, the word meaning “straight-wings,” but, again, not significant in all cases, though serving very well as a name. The order is a group of related families, and, in the Orthoptera, the grasshoppers, or locusts, make one family, the katydids another, the crickets a third ”

“ Here is another piece of evidence suggesting that the male cricket sings to express his own emotions, whatever they may be, and not pri- marily to attract the female. But if, as in the case of the tree crickets, his music tells the female where she may find her favorite confection, and this in turn leads to matrimony, when the male is in the proper mood, it suggests a practical use and a rea- son for the stridulating apparatus and the song of the male insect. ”

“ The Grasshopper's Cousins
Nature's tendency is to produce groups rather than individuals. Any animal you can think of resembles in some way another animal or a number of other animnals. An insect resembles on the one hand a shrimp or a crab, and on the other a centipede or a spider. Resemblances amnong animnals are either superficial or fundamnental. For example, a whale or a porpoise resembles a fish and lives the life of a fish, but has the skeleton and other organs of land-inhabiting mammals. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Most of the muscial instruments of insects can be made to produce a swish, a creak, or a grating noise of some sort when handled with our clumsy fingers or with a pair of forceps, but only the skill of the living insect can bring from them the tones and the volume of sound they are capable of producing. Our best-known cricket is Gryllus, the black cricket (Fig. 36) , so common everywhere in fields and yards and occasionally entering houses. The true house cricket of Europe, Grvllus domesticus, bas become naturalized in this country anal occurs in small numbers through the Eastern States. ”

“ Even with such large ears, however, attempts at making the grasshopper hear are never very succeasful; but its tympanal organs have the same structure as those of insects noted for their singing, which presumably, therefore, can hear their own sound productions.
Not many of the grasshoppers are musical. They are mostly sedate creatures that conceal their sentiments, if they have any. They are awake in the daytime and they sleep at night—commendable traits, but habits that seldom beget much in the way of artistic attainment. ”

“ The mantis is an evil creature from the standpoint of a grasshopper, but he would be regarded as a benefactor by those who have a grudge against grass- hoppers or against other insects that the mantis destroys. Hence, we must reckon the mantis as at least a beneficial insect relative to human welfare. A large species of mantis, introduced a few years ago into the eastern States from China, is now regarded as a valuable agricul- rural asset because of the number of harmful insects it destroys. ”

“ Figure 21 shows a male and a female, the female in the act of cleaning the pads on one of her hind feet. The katydids are all very particular about keeping their feet clean, for it is quite essential to have their adhesive pads always in perfect working order; but they are so continually stopping whatever they may be doing to lick one foot or another, like a dog scratching fleas, that it looks more like an ingrown habit with them than a necessary act of cleanliness. ”

“ The other male usually retaliated by play- ing, too, in an apparent attempt to outfiddle the first. The chirps flore both sides now came quicker and quicker, their pitch mounting higher and higher, till each player reached his limit. Then both would stop and begin over again. Neither male ever inflicted any actual damage on his rival, and in spire of their savage threats neither was ever seen really to grasp any part of the other with hisjaws. Ether would dash madly at a female that happened to disturb him while fiddling, but neither was ever seen to threaten a female with open jaws. ”

“ Though some members of the katydid family live in the fields and are very grasshopperlike or even cricketlike in form and manners, the characteristic species are seclusive inhabitants of shrubbery or trees. These are the true aristocrats of the Orthoptera.
An insect musician differs in many respects from a human musician, aside from that of being an insect instead of a human being. The insect artists are all instrumentalists ”

“ 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. ”

“ THE GRASSHOPPER'S COUSINS
them to take the form of leaves. One famous species that lives in the East Indies looks so much like two leaves stuck together that it is truly marvelous that an insect could be
so fashioned (Fig. 45) . The whole body is fiat, and about three inches long, the bases of the legs are broad and irregu- larly notched, the abdomen is spread out almost as thin as a real leaf, and the leafiike wings are held close above it. ”

“ The female is heavier-bodied than the male, but her wings are narrow, and when folded are furled along the back. She has a long ovipositor for inserting her eggs into the bark of trees. The males of the snowy cricket reach maturity and begin to sing about the middle of July. The singer raises his
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INSECTS
wings vertically above the back and vibrates them sidewise so rapidly that they are momentarily blurred with each note. ”

“ The color of the katydid is plain green, with a conspicuous dark-brown triangle on the back covering the stridulating area of the wings. The tips of the mouth parts are vellowish. The eyes are of a pale transparent green, but each has a dark center which, like the pupil in a painting, is always fixed upon you from whatever angle you retreat. The movements of the captive individual are slow, though in the open he can run rather rapidly, and when he is in a hurry he often takes the rather absurd attitude shown at B of Figure 25, with the head down and the wings and body elevated. ”

“ But at this same rime another group of individuals reaches maturity, a group that hatched in midsummer of the preceding year and passed the winter in an immature condition. The males of these begin singing at Washington during the last part of May, in Connecticut the first of June, and may be heard until the end of June. Then there is seldom any sound of Gryllus until the middle of August, when the males of the spring group begin to mature. From now on their notes become more and more common and by early fall they are to be heard almost continuously day and night until frost. ”

“ When the katydids are singing at night in the woods they appear to be most wary of disturbance, and often the voice of a person approaching or a crackle underfoot is sufficient to quiet a singer far overhead. The male in the cage never utters a note until he bas been in darkness and quiet for a considerable time. ”

“ It must be understood, therefore, that though we speak of the "songs" of insects, insects do not have true voices in the sense that "voice" is the production of sound by the breath playing on vocal cords. All the musical instruments of insects, it is true, are parts of their bodies ”

“ Some crickets have large wings, some small wings, some no wings at all. The females are provided with long oviposi- tors for placing their eggs in twigs of trees or in the ground (Figs. 35, 36) ? The musical or stridulating organs of the crickets are similar to those of the katydids, being formed from the veins of the basal parts of the front wings. But in the crickets the organs are equally developed on each wing, and it looks as if these insects could play with either wing up- permost. ”

“ The most abundant and most widely distributed member of the first is the common meadow grasshopper, Orchelimum vulgare. A male is shown in Figure 29. He is a little over an inch in length, with head rather large for his size and with big eyes of a bright orange color. The ground color of his body is greenish, but the top of the head and the thoracic shield is occupied by a long triangular dark-brown patch, while the stridulating area of GRASSHOPPER'S COUSINS
Fro. 3o. The hand- some meadow grass- hopper, Orchelimum laticauda Upper figure, a male ”

“ Their forefeet are broad and turned outward for digging like the iront feet of moles. But the mole crickets differ from real moles in having wings, and sometimes they leave their burrows at night and fly about, being occasionally attracted to lights. Their front wings are short and lie fiat on the back over the base of the abdomen, but the long hind wings are folded lengthwise over the back and project beyond the tip of the body. Notwithstanding the gloomy nature of their habitat, the male mole crickets sing. ”

“ We must suspect, then, that in this case the female has been attracted to the male rather by his confectionery offering than by his music. The purpose of the latter, tJaerefore, would appear to be to advertise to the female the whereabouts of the male, who she knows has sweets to offer; or if the liquid is sour or bitter it is all the same--the female likes it and comes after it. If, now, this luring of the female sometimes ends in marriage, we may see here the real reason for the male's possessing his mus'ic-making organs and his instinct to play them so continuouslv. ”

“ While the grasshoppers give examples of the more primitive attempts of insects at musical production and may be compared in this respect to the more primitive of human races, the katydids show the highest development of the art attained by insects. ”

“ The robust conehead, Neoconocephalus robustus, in position of singing, with fore wings separated and somewhat elevated, the head downward
A large conehead and one with a much stronger instrument is the robust conehead, Neoconocephalus robustus (Fig. 28) . He is one of the loudest singers of North American Orthoptera, his song being an intense, continuous buzz, somewhat resembling that of a cicada. A caged specimen singing in a room makes a deafening noise. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Etomologists distinguish several varieties, though they are inclined to regard them all as belonging to the one species. Mature individuals of Gryllus are particularly abundant in the fall; in southern New Egland they appear every year at this season by the millions, swarming everywhere, hopping across the country roads in such numbers that it is impossible to ride or walk without crushing them. ”

“ He never flies, and was never seen to spread his wings, but when making short leaps the wings are slightly fluttered, in preparing for a leap, if only one of a few inches or a foot, he makes very careful preparations, scrutinizing the proposed landing place long and closely, though perhaps he sees better in the dark and acts then with more agility. If the leap is to be made from a horizontal surface, he slowly crouches with the legs drawn together, assuming an attitude more familiar in a cat ”

“ THE SHIELD BEARERS Another large group of the katvdid family is the sub- family Decticinae, mostly cricketl'ike insects that lire on the ground, but which have wings so short (Fig. 3"-) that they are poor musicians. They are called "shield bearers" because the large back plate of the first body segment is more or less prolonged like a shield over the back. Most of the species live in the western parts of the United States, where the individuals sometimes become so abtmdant as to form large and very destructive bands. ”

“ When resemnblances between animals are of a fundamental nature, we believe that they represent actual blood relationships carried down from some far-distant common ancestor; but the determination of relationships between animals is not always an easy matter, because it is often difficult to know what are fundamental characters and what are superficial ones. ”