ttle lady katydid cannot sing--only the little male, and he
keeps it up all night long.

We sometimes wish he would get tired or sleepy and stop, but he never
does.

Why do you suppose he likes to sing so well in the night?

The katydids generally live on trees and bushes.

Yes, they are a beautiful, pale green people, and that is one reason we
do not often see them. It is not easy to find a katydid among the green
leaves.

The female katydids have a long sword-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 larvae 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 larvae.

[Illustration]

See this dainty katydid that Charlie has caught for us.

How pretty it is!

Its feelers are like long green threads.

And how sensitive they are!

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. 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.

The inner wings are like fine lace.

They look too delicate for use, and yet the katydid flies very well
indeed with them.

They are a little longer than the wing covers.

[Illustration]

When the katydid is at rest you can see the tips of the wings extending
beyond the ends of the wing covers.

The part of the inner wing that extends beyond the wing covers is green,
like the wing covers, you see.

But the rest of the inner wing is not green, it is like very thin glass,
or like fine isinglass.

Look for a moment at the long curved ovipositor of the female katydid.

If you look sharp, you will see teeth on it like a little saw. It is
with these teeth the little katydid is a