NOTES ON THE LOCUSTIDÆ OF ONTARIO

Extract

Measurements: Length of body, ♂ 26.5 mm., ♀ 29 mm.; of pronotum, ♂ 7.5 mm.; ♀ 6.7 mm.; of hind femora, ♂ 20.5 mm., ♀ 21.5 mm.; of tegmina, ♂ 41 mm., ♀ 46 mm.; of ovipositor, 32 mm.

This is a very common insect in Ontario, ranging northward about far as Muskoka and the Bruce Peninsula. It frequents fields, vacant lots and roadsides, which resound at night with the incessant monotonous song, during late summer and autumn.

Scudder describes this song as composed of a succession of sounds like “chwi,” emitted at the rate of about five per second. He states that it stridulates only at night or during cloudy weather, but I have occasionally heard it in bright sunshine, in the afternoon. It is the most easily approached of all our locustarians while thus engaged, and is in fact difficult to find in any other way; hence the females are but seldom seen.