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This segment is bent at a right angle along a strong longitudinal nervure, and descends on the outer side in a flap which encloses the insect's flank when in the attitude of repose. The right wing-cover overlaps the left.
Like all things of real value, it is very simple; it is based on the same principle as that of the locusts; there is the toothed fiddlestick and the vibrating tympanum. The right wing-cover overlaps the left and almost completely covers it, except for the sudden fold which encases the insect's flank.
The powerful nervures of the dorsal portion of the wing-cover are of the deepest black, and their general effect is that of a complicated design, not unlike a tangle of Arabic caligraphy.
The five hundred prisms of the bow biting upon the ridges of the wing-cover opposed to it set all four tympanums vibrating at once; the lower pair by direct friction, the upper pair by the vibration of the wing-cover itself. What a powerful sound results!
It injects its protoplasm between the two surfaces of an embryo organ, and the material forms a wing-cover, because it finds as guide the ideal archetype of which I spoke but now. It is controlled in the labyrinth of its course by a device anterior to the injection: anterior to the material itself.
This last nervure, which is of a slightly reddish hue, is the fundamental element of the musical device; it is, in short, the bow, the fiddlestick, as is proved by the fine notches which run across it. The rest of the wing-cover shows a few more nervures of less importance, which hold the membrane stretched tight, but do not form part of the friction apparatus.
The left or lower wing-cover is of similar structure, with the difference that the bow, the callosity, and the nervures occupy the upper face. It will be found that the two bows that is, the toothed or indented nervures cross one another obliquely. When the note has its full volume, the wing-covers are well raised above the body like a wide gauzy sail, only touching along the internal edges.
I observed the same rudimentary structure on the under side of the right wing-cover in Phasgonura viridissima.
These two spaces represent the mirror of the locust tribe; they constitute the sonorous area. The substance of the wing-cover is finer here than elsewhere, and shows traces of iridescent though somewhat smoky colour. These are parts of an admirable instrument, greatly superior to that of the Decticus.
Seen by transmitted light the wing-cover is of a very pale reddish colour, excepting two large adjacent spaces, one of which, the larger and anterior, is triangular in shape, while the other, the smaller and posterior, is oval. Each space is surrounded by a strong nervure and goffered by slight wrinkles or depressions.
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