Slow Signal Fade ebooks

In the Grasshoppers (Acridiidae) the wing-cases meet in a
straight suture, and the friction of portions of their edges is
no longer possible. But Nature exhibits the same fertility of
resource here as elsewhere; and in contriving other methods of
supplying the males with an instrument for the production of
call-notes indicates the great importance which she attaches to
this function. The music in the males of the Acridiidae is
produced by the scraping of the long hind thighs against the
horny nervures of the outer edges of the wing-cases; a drum-
shaped organ placed in a cavity near the insertion of the thighs
being adapted to give resonance to the tones.
I obtained very few birds at Obydos. There was no scarcity of
birds, but they were mostly common Cayenne species. In early
morning, the woods near my house were quite animated with their
songs--an unusual thing in this country. I heard here for the
first time the pleasing wild notes of the Carashue, a species of
thrush, probably the Mimus lividus of ornithologists.


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