Katydid

“ The katydid is interesting in captivity, and if fed on fruits, will live thus for several weeks. Like other grasshoppers, after the warm season they rapidly become old, the voice ceases, and they soon perish. ”

“ Frog cried.
"Very well! But please talk fast; for I'm terribly hungry." [48]
"Kiddie Katydid is a fiddler," Mr. Frog announced. "He fiddles every night. And that's the way he makes that ditty of his—Katy did, Katy——"
"Don't!" Mr. Crow begged. "Please don't! It's bad enough to have to hear that silly chorus every time I happen to wake up during the night—bad enough, I say, without being obliged to listen to it in broad daylight."
"Very well!" the tailor yielded. "But he fiddles it, all the same. And when you tell my tale to Brownie Beaver I guess he'll be surprised." ”

“ Nighthawk, nodding his head. "But I thought that just to oblige a friend you wouldn't object to jumping from this tree into that one." And he pointed to the nearest maple, the branches of which all but touched the tree-top in which they were sitting. But Kiddie Katydid's mind was made up.
"No jumping for me to-night!" he piped in a shrill voice.
All this time Mr. Nighthawk was growing hungrier than ever. And one might well wonder why he didn't make one quick spring at Kiddie Katydid and swallow him. But that was not Mr. Nighthawk's way of dining. ”

“ Kiddie Katydid had a neighbor who was a good deal like him. Indeed, a careless person had to look sharply to discover much difference between them. But there was a difference. There was, especially, a certain way in which one could always tell them apart. One had only to take the trouble to look at their horns—or feelers. For Kiddie Katydid had horns as long—or longer—than he was. But his neighbor, who was known as Leaper the Locust, wore his horns quite short. ”

“ Thou art a female, Katydid!
I know it by the trill
That quivers through thy piercing notes,
So petulant and shrill;
I think there is a knot of you
Beneath the hollow tree,—
A knot of spinster Katydids,—
Do Katydids drink tea? ”

“ But Kiddie Katydid usually laughed at those faint-hearted ones; and often he shrilled his Katy did, Katy did, more loudly than before, just to show them that he was not afraid.
"A person has to take a few chances," [9] he remarked one day. "If we were all afraid to make a sound it would be pretty hard on Katy, for then she would have nobody to take her part. ”

“ The female katydids have a long sword- [Pg 96] shaped ovipositor with which they roughen the bark on twigs, and place the eggs there, fastening them with a gummy substance.
The egg is glued fast so it will not fall off.
It hatches into a little dot of a katydid that has no wings, but, like the larvæ of the other insects we know about, it eats and grows and moults, and at last its wings and the rest of its body are full grown.
It casts its skin for the last time; it is no longer a larva, but a full-grown insect.
Yes, May, we call the young of all insects larvæ. ”

“ A, usual position of a male while singing. B, attitude while running rapidly on a smooth surface. C, preparing to leap from a vertical surface. D, a male, seen from above, showing the stridulating area at the base of the wings. E, a female, showing the broad, flat, curved ovipositor
Between the bases of the antennae on the forehead there is a small conical projection, a physical character which separates the true katydid from the round-headed katydids and assigns him to the subfamily called the Pseudophyllinae, which includes, besides our species, many others that live mostly in the tropics. ”

“ It quickly starts away when we touch one of the feelers.
Yes, Mollie, the katydid walks more than the grasshopper.
It can jump well with those long, slender hind legs. How beautiful its hind legs are! They are longer and more delicate than those of the grasshopper.
And its wings, how gauzy and dainty! Its wing covers are not so stiff as those of the grasshopper. [Pg 97] They look almost like flying wings, they are so delicate.
See, they open, and fasten themselves open, like the wing covers of the grasshopper; and when they are at rest they overlap like the wings of the grasshopper. ”

“ From near-by came Chirpy Cricket's cheerful piping. And in the distant swamp the musical Frog family held a singing party every evening. Johnnie Green liked to hear them. But he objected strongly to the weird hooting and horrid laughter of Solomon Owl, who left the hemlock woods after dark to hunt for field mice.
As for Kiddie Katydid, he paid little [4] attention to any other of the night cries. No matter what anybody else said, he solemnly hurled back at him that neverending refrain, Katy did, Katy did; she did, she did! ”

“ This fact alone admonishes us how careful we should be when importing new and valuable plants from abroad, for, if a large insect, nearly two inches in length, and fully the size of a katydid, can be so easily introduced, how much more readily the small and inconspicuous noxious insects hidden under the bark would be likely to escape notice, until they had perpetuated their species, so as to become partially naturalized and injurious to our plants! ”

“ Where the katydid works her chromatic reed on the walnut-tree over the well; ”

“ 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 ”

“ Does he ever visit our neighborhood?”
“Not often!” said Kiddie Katydid. “I met him here once. And that was enough for me. I never felt more uncomfortable in all my life.” He shuddered as he spoke and looked over his shoulder. ”

“ Well, the day was not half gone before all the wild creatures in Pleasant Valley had heard all about Kiddie Katydid and his fiddling. At least twenty-seven people came to Mr. Frog at different times and told him the news. And he was furious.
"Old Mr. Crow has deceived me!" he complained. "I found out this secret myself. And now that black rascal's taking all the credit for it."
"Mr. Crow has suggested that Kiddie Katydid be invited to join the Pleasant Valley orchestra," Long Bill Wren informed Mr. Frog. "They have no fiddlers, you know. And Kiddie will be a [52] great help to them. Mr. ”

“ Well, late one night—or early one morning—Kiddie Katydid and Benjamin Bat were enjoying a chat in the tree-tops, when Benjamin put a new idea into Kiddie's head.
"We ought to have some sports right here in Farmer Green's yard," he suggested. "You're such a fine jumper that you could try your skill against Mr. Frog. And you're such a fine flier that you and [73] Freddie Firefly ought to have a race. ”

“ Even when Benjamin Bat called him a long-legged, flat-headed, paddle-footed meddler, Mr. Frog only smiled and turned a few somersaults backward.
"What's the matter with you?" Benjamin Bat asked him at last. "Can't you speak?"
"Certainly! Certainly!" Mr. Frog said then. "I've been trying to think of some way to prevent so much quarreling. It hardly seems fair to Kiddie Katydid—this uproar right in his dooryard. And since you are the one that's making the great [81] est disturbance, I'd suggest that you go away and leave us to enjoy the rest of the night in peace." ”

“ I always wear green. It's my favorite color."
"Ah! Trust me not to make a mistake!" Mr. Frog chuckled happily. And then he withdrew. But he could not help pausing for a moment, to look back and watch, while Kiddie sprang down from his tree and took his new coat from the twig on which the tailor had hung it. [60]
XIII KIDDIE KATYDID IS SHY
"Now—" said Mr. Frog, when he had returned from the watering-trough—"now tell me, how do you like the overcoat I made for you?" ”

“ The instruments of different players differ somewhat in the details of their structure. There are variations in the form and size of the file and the scraper on the wings of different species, and differences in the veins supporting the tympanal areas, as shown in the drawings of these parts from a conehead (Fig. 27) given at A, B, and C, of Figure 19. In the true katydid, the greatest singer of the family, the file, the scraper, the tympana, and the wings themselves (Fig. 26) are all very highly developed to form an instrument of great efficiencv. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ But there was always [103] somebody to point out some flaw and upset every calculation. So at last everybody stopped guessing and admitted that he had no idea as to what Kiddie Katydid had in mind. It was just another one of his secrets. And people might as well wait patiently to see what happened. Even Solomon Owl agreed to that. "Time will tell!" he said with a wise nod of his head. [104]
XXII THE SHORT-HORNS ARRIVE
In at least one respect, the short-horned messenger had told the truth. Before twenty-four hours had gone by, the fellow returned to Farmer Green's dooryard ”

“ Crow is a newspaper. Perhaps you didn't know it; but every Saturday he flies over Blue Mountain to the pond where Brownie Beaver lives and [33] tells Brownie all the news of the past week."
"Then for pity's sake, don't let him hear of this!" Kiddie begged.
But nothing could have stopped Freddie Firefly.
"You're too modest," he said. "It's a shame to be able to make music the way you do and not let the neighbors know it. Why, the first thing you know you'll be one of the most famous people in this whole valley."
"But I don't want to be!" Kiddie Katydid cried. "I'm not like you. ”

“ Crow, even if I have to disappoint a customer. Always oblige a friend! That's my motto!" said Mr. Frog.
"Very well, then!" Freddie Firefly replied. "I'll say what I was going to; but it doesn't concern that Katy person you just mentioned."
"Oh, it doesn't," the tailor echoed. "Then I don't know that I care to listen to you, after all. I thought you were going to explain about that mysterious lady that Kiddie's always singing about." He was sadly disappointed. And once more he turned toward the creek. [40]
IX MR. FROG IS PLEASED
"Kiddie Katydid doesn't sing!" Freddie Firefly told Mr. ”

“ A number of grasshoppers go by the name of Katydids in America, but the general type of the insect is a graceful, green, fragile-looking creature, with very long, slender antennæ, and, in the female, a long ovipositor at the other end, as if to balance matters. There are many species, and all, or most of them, sing both by night and day, and what is very remarkable, or, at least, very interesting, they have a different note for either. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 warm and humming air is filled with insect sounds, ranging from the murmur of invisible gnats and midges, to the impetuous whirring of the great Libellulae, large almost as swallows, and hawking high in air for their food. Swift butterflies glance by, moths flutter, flies buzz, grasshoppers and katydids pipe their shrill notes, sharp as the edges of the sunbeams. Busy bees go humming past, straight as arrows, express-freight-trains from one blossoming copse to another. ”

“ Indeed, everything that could hum, or buzz, or sing, or bloom had a part in my education-noisy-throated frogs, katydids and crickets held in my hand until forgetting their embarrassment, they trilled their reedy note, little downy chickens and wildflowers, the dogwood blossoms, meadow-violets and budding fruit trees. I felt the bursting cotton-bolls and fingered their soft fiber and fuzzy seeds; ”

“ Then it can be seen that these catkins consist of male flowers, for the yellow stamens are evident, and soon every breeze shakes out a little cloud of yellow pollen. Looked at analytically, the catkin is seen to be made up of a large number of scaly bracts, of which one large and two small go to a flower, and these are so arranged as to form a pent-house roof over the eight stamens. The female flowers are altogether different. They each consist of a two-celled ovary, with two slender, crimson styles, and enclosed in a kind of calyx, three-parted. ”