CHAPTER VIII
Locusts and locustidæ—The most musical grasshoppers—Katydid concerts—A much-resembling note—Cricket thermometers—Cicadas and sounding-boards—Admired musicians—An appreciative audience.
LOCUSTS, as everybody knows, belong to the grasshopper family, but it may surprise some who have read the grumblings of the learned over popular names—white ants, hedge-sparrows, etc.—to find that entomologists have so managed matters that they do not belong to the locustidæ—which is one of the two groups into which all grasshoppers are divided—but to the other group. There are long-horned grasshoppers and short-horned grasshoppers. The long-horned ones, which are not locusts, are all of them locustidæ, but none of the locustidæ are locusts, because locusts have short horns. Entomologists think it would be absurd to alter this, after it has gone on so long, a view in which ornithologists, with their storm-petrels and hedge-accentors, no doubt agree with them. A mere popular name, with its roots in the Saxon or Celtic, can be changed, and there an end, but scientific nonsense, in Latin, and begun by Linnæus, as is generally the case, let no man presume to meddle with.
It is amongst the locustidæ that we find the most musical of the grasshoppers, the Katydids—so well known and highly appreciated in the United States—standing on a far higher level in this respect than the comparatively unmusical locusts. Not that the locustidæ—however musical—use their long horns for blowing purposes. Properly speaking, these are only antennæ, and function as such, the musical apparatus being situated elsewhere. The Katydids, for instance, rasp their fore wings against each other, according to the general idea, three times in succession, producing the three syllables, Ka—ty—did, which have given the insect its name, but according to Mr. Scudder[[25]] only twice, which makes either “Katy,” or “She did”; that is to say, as a general rule, for he admits the three on occasions. The notes are uttered with great emphasis, and at the rate of some two hundred in the minute, the performance continuing, at least in the case of some species, all day and all night long.
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. Speaking of one—or, rather, of a long-horned grasshopper nearly related to the Katydids, but not actually a member of the sisterhood—which he had been watching in the sunshine, Mr. Scudder says: “As a cloud passed over the sun he suddenly changed his note to one with which I was already familiar, but without knowing to what insect it belonged. At the same time, all the individuals around, whose similar day-song I had heard, began to respond with the night-cry. The cloud passed away, and the original note was resumed on all sides.”[[26]] Scudderia angustifolia is the name of this little musician, so called, perhaps, because so sensitive to scudding clouds. But the Katydids do more than merely play an individual tune, each on his own instrument. They hold concerts, at which many join together to make an elaborate musical display, a certain number commencing on one note, and others joining in harmoniously on another. There are leaders, whose business it is to hold the time-measure, and, by a steady insistence on the right note, to draw back any who may happen for a moment to get out of tune. The orchestra is divided into so many companies, who support and assist one another, so that the whole makes a concerted harmony, in which there are many different movements. As a rule the performance is most creditable, though occasionally the effect is marred by a careless player. Before commencing, the company always tunes up.
Possibly it may be thought that there is some mistake here—that things cannot be quite like this. Personally I have no knowledge on the subject—never having been to America—but here is what Dr. George M. Gould says, writing in Science for October or November, probably 1895, since the number is referred to as “recent” in Nature for December 5th of that year. “As soon as the sun has set and twilight is advancing, the Katydids in the trees begin to ‘tune up.’ The first notes are scattered, awkward and without rhythm, but if no wind is blowing thousands soon join in, and from time to time, until daylight breaks, there is no intermission.... In order to make my description clearer, let us suppose a thousand Katydids, scattered through the trees, to utter their several notes all at once, and call them Company A. Another thousand—Company B—at once answers them, and this swing-swong is kept up, as I say, all night. Company A’s note is the emphatic or accented note, and is more definitely and accurately a precise musical note, whilst the note of Company B varies from one to five half-tones below, the most conspicuous note being five. In the old-fashioned musical terms I learned as a boy, Company A is, e.g., clearly and definitely do, while the note of Company B is either la, or more certainly sol. Not only is Company A’s note more unisonal and definite, but it is firmer, more accented, and it seems to me that more insects join in this note than in the second. Careful observation has convinced me that no insect of Company A or Company B ever joins in the other company’s note. The rhythm is usually perfect, unless there is a disturbance by a breeze. A sharp gust upsets the whole orchestra, and confusion results, but the measured beat is soon refound. In the instants of confusion one can detect the steady see-saw of certain ones, as it were, ‘leaders,’ or first violinists, who hold the time-measure, despite the wind, and who soon draw the lost notes of the others once more into the regular measure or beat. I do not mean to say that by diligent attention one may not at times detect individuals sawing out of tune, stray fellows that are indifferent or careless, but the vast majority, usually even without a single exception, if there is no wind or rain, thus swing along, hour after hour, in perfect time. I have counted the beats several times, and find the number is always identical: thirty-four double beats, or sixty-eight single ones, in sixty seconds. The effect of the rhythm upon the mind is not unlike that of the woodman’s cross-cut saw, handled by two steady, tireless pairs of hands, although the Katydids give a larger volume of sound, and the timbre is harsher.” Such is the account, and upon it Dr. Gould asks two questions: “What function does the orchestration subserve?” and “Is there anything comparable to it among other animals?”
In view of these performances of the Katydids one may perhaps question the statement, often made, that crickets are the most musical of all insects. The Snowy Cricket, however, of the United States, and no doubt elsewhere in America, is a very striking performer, especially at night, when it emits sounds which Nathaniel Hawthorne has likened to “audible stillness,” and of which he says: “If moonlight could be heard it would sound like that.” Thoreau describes it as a “slumbrous breathing,” but according to the State Entomologist of the United States, this “slumbrous breathing,” or “audible stillness,” consists of “a shrill re-teat, re-teat, re-teat,” which Mr. Leland Howard,[[26]] indeed, thinks the best description, but is not quite my idea—nor probably Hawthorne’s—of how moonlight would sound. Harrington—who I suppose is another entomologist—does not interfere with any of these opinions, but describes something which he has seen, and can find nothing about in books. “While the male,” he says, “is energetically shuffling together his wings, raised almost vertically, the female may be seen standing just behind him, and with her head applied to the base of the wings, evidently eager to get the full benefit of every note produced.”[[26]] No doubt the female likes the notes—that, indeed, is the rationale of their utterance—but what they are really like it is impossible to make out from these various descriptions, another of which, by the way, is “a rhythmic beat.” Possibly they are no more extraordinary (at any rate, “re-teat” is not) than those of our own, and cheerful, house-cricket, which to my ear have always sounded very pretty, but which Cowper evidently did not care about except as a matter of association, since he thus alludes to them in the Task:—
“Sounds inharmonious in themselves and harsh,
Yet heard in scenes where peace for ever (sic) reigns,