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Psyche 8:99-101, 1897.

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BIOLOGICAL AND OTHER NOTES ON AMERICAN ACRIDIIDAE. BY SAMUEL H. SCUDDER, CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
Tettix granulatus Kirby. This
species flies in arches from six to ten
feet in length and a foot in height at
the most, without swerving to one side
or the other.
Chloealtis conspersa Ham. The
eggs have a slight curve, so that when
the embryo is formed it lies with the
head downward and the back slightly
bent. The surface of the egg is micro-
scopically reticulate, the cells of the
reticulation 0.035 mm. in diameter with
raised walls between them. During
the winter the embryo is in a stage of
development apparently equivalent to
the second or third stage of Diplax as
given by Packard ; the labium is unmis-
takably grouped with the legs and
nearly as long as they; it is not until
spring that the abdominal segments are
mapped out, at least upon the dorsal
and ventral surfaces. The eggs are
excluded cap foremost, and in different
pods counted were 10, 11, 14,1o, 4,6,6.
In the Geology of New Hampshire I
gave some account of my observations
on this insect at Sudbury, Vt. Subse-
quently I elsewhere observed that the
number of notes of the male in stridula- tion varied from seven to sixteen and
that in the sun the rate at which they
were produced was nearly four per
second.
At West Campton, N. H., June '5, I
found in one egg-cluster the empty
puparium of a Tachinid fly, and in
another cluster, on removing the
cap, the pupa of Trichodes nut-
tall; which yielded the beetle June
23d. Dr. LeConte determined the
beetle and wrote at the time that "T.
alve&s of Europe lives in the larval
form in nests of mud wasps and T.
q5iarz'v.s of Europe in bee hives " ; in still another cluster I found a coleopter- ous larva, never determined, between
the eggs and the cap; it was fat and
plump, although the eggs were un-
touched.
Stenobothrus curtipennis {Harr.) .
I have timed the stridulation of this
species many times with somewhat
varying results. I noted first, what I
have already published, that " the notes are produced at the rate of about six a
second and are continued from one and
a half to two and a half seconds," but
that they were less rapid when the sky
was overcast. These were from obser-
vations at Hampton, N. H. At Jeffer-
son, N. H,, on a warm and sunny
afternoon, I observed that the rate was
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100 p.YYcffE. [August 1897.
nine per second and the duration as
before, but the observation was not a
very extended one. Later, at the same
place I took more careful observation,
and have noted it as certainly correct,
that the duration was as before and the
rate ninety-four in fifteen seconds. As
in Chloealtis cons-persa the first one or two strokes are frequently noiseless, the femora apparently failing to strike the
tegmina ; and when they are struck the
notes are shorter than the succeeding.
At Sudbury, Vt., this species occurred
almost exclusively in the uplands, rarely in the low meadows.
The ovaries are very large and thick,
pale pinkish at base, pale or colorless
apically;
the eggs appear to be ar-
ranged upon them like the bristles of a
brush, having their free tips turned
toward the middle line of the body ; the larger eggs are beneath and the upper
portions of the ovaries are attached
together quite strongly by a delicate
tissue. The eggs of opposite sides
touch by their tips, are pale yellowish
and appear to be in three, possibly four, tiers. Of several females dissected
August 15, I counted in one 39 eggs on
one side, 30 on the other; in another
45 and 42 respectively; in a third, 38
on each side. Still another had no eggs
at all, but instead the entire abdominal cavity was crowded with the coils of a
Filarian "worm, which when removed
measured nearly two feet in length.
Encoptolophus sordidus (Burin.).
The imago first appeared at Sudbury,
Vt'., on Aug. 15, in 1868, the specin~ens still pale from freshness. In Cam-
bridge, Mass., Oct. 10, 1867, the males
were very abundant, but not a single
female was noticed.
The eggs are extruded cap-end fore-
most, and laid in a mass in drilled holes in bare spots in sandy compact loam,
so deep that the top of the pod is about two centimeters below the level of the
ground. Late in the afternoon of Sep-
tember 30, at Andover, Mass., I noticed
a female which had just completed her
task standing within her own length of
her filled-up hole, the whereabouts of
which was revealed by the scratched
appearance of the soil, completely ex-
hausted ; her ovipositor was hoary with
froth and she made no attempt to
escape. She had evidently further eggs
to lay. A second open hole only a
few centimeters away had no eggs, but
near the bottom an elaterid larva was
discovered which probably led to the
abandonment of the hole.
Camnula pellucida Scudd. July
22, 1867, this species appeared in very
great numbers at Jefferson, N. H., the
males more abundant than the females.
It was the first pleasant day afterfour
days of storm, just before which the
fields where these occurred showed no
mature specimens at all.
Dissosteira carolina (Linn.) . The
eggs are laid in a mass as in Melano-
plus, only the pod is larger.
In one
found in Springfield, Mass., laid in
damp soil, there were about forty eggs,
which were laid not horizontally but
with a slight obliquity, and the diameter of the pod was about half as long again
as one of the eggs. In a pod formed




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August 1a97.1 PSYCHE. 101
on the side of a knoll, where the earth
had afterwards fallen away, partially
exposing the eggs, each exposed egg
had been pierced by a parasite, Scelis
ovivorux Riley, which emerged Sept.
18, one from each egg and about a
dozen in all.
A male and a female taken in coitu
at Niagara Falls, Aug. 18, were pre-
served and from the body of the female
there issued early in September two
Tachinae which Mr. C. H. Tyler
Townsend has identified for me as Sw-
co-phaga oedifodinis Towns. Ms.
An embryo 7 mm. long and nearly
formed was observed some years ago.
As viewed from above the prothorax is
no larger than the other thoracic seg
ments and these are entirely similar to
the abdominal, no regional distinction
being perceptible. The hind femora
are long and reach the end of the third
abdominal segment ; the tibiae are bent
at right angles toward and across each
other, the tarsi curving backward, out-
ward, and upward. The middle legs
are not alike. On one side, the femur
lies upon the base of the hind femur and the tibia and tarsi bend sharply back
upon the femur and parallel to it; on
the other, the femur lies entirely within the hind femur (i. e., toward the middle line of ventral surface of body) and the tibia bends at first at slightly less than a right angle to it, then is twisted, and the tarsi are finally directed toward a
point between the insertion of the mid-
dle and hind legs of the opposite side,
and the extremity apparently between
its opposite neighbors. The fore
femora run in the same direction as and
parallel to the hind femora and the
tibiae and tarsi are bent sharply back
upon the femora but run a little beneath both them and the tibiae of the oppo-
site pair, so as to be only partially
visible.
The labrum, strongly bilobed at apex
is bent downward and appressed against
the face, the two mandibles (the black
denticles at tip being formed) being
separated from each other by the labrum, their insertions being nearly or quite as far apart as those of the forelegs. The
maxillae seem to arise in the middle line beside and partially concealed by the
mandibles, directed outward, and one
of them twice as long as the other ; the two halves of the labrum arise in a
similar way, but lie beneath the mandi-
bles. The antennae come down in
front of the eyes, being pushed toward
them by the protuberant mandibles ;
one of them is broken, nothing but the
stump being visible ! Just behind the
base of the hind femora, in the place
of the body of doubtful character in
Rathke's figure of the embryo of Gryllo- talpa, is a shining lenticular elevation. In 1865 the imago first appeared on
June 29.
On Oct. 10, 1867, the species
were by no means uncommon in Cam-
bridge, but I could find only females,
and the late Mr. Sanborn told me that
the same was true on the same day at
Andover, Mass.
Mr. J. A. Allen tells me that in Iowa
the species occurs only by roadsides and in rather dry places. A specimen flew
into the window of the late Professor




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102 PSTCHE. [~ugust 1897,
Bdird's house in Washington, D. d,
on the night of July 19, 1868.
Dictyophorus reticulatus Thunb.
A specimen kept in captivity was ex-
cessively deliberate in its movements ;
to clean its antennae it treads upon one at a time and draws it from under its
feet ; it was very tame and would leap
but a few inches at a time. Two speci-
mens from Lookout Mt., Tenn., were
sent me by Mr. B. P. Mann, both
females, and when received (by mail)
one had eaten the entire abdomen ofthe
other excepting the sternal portions and the ovipositor ; yet the injured specimen did not seem to mind it greatly !
Melanoplus femur-rubrum (De
Geer). At Sudbury, Vt., specimens
taken in low meadows differed from
those captured in hollows of dry upland
hilly pastures in being darker colored
and having more contrasted coloration.
Three quarters of an hour after sunset
on a cloudy evening in August a speci-
men was unable to see my hand, as
it several times did not move until
touched ; then, however, it jumped to
another blade of grass. The experi-
ment was tried several times with the
same individual and with the same
result.
Melanoplus collinus Scudd. This
species was found abundantly at Sud-
bury, Vt., where, on Aug. 15, no eggs
could be found in the ovaries of the
females examined ; the ovaries were
spread as a mere film on the intestines
and no eggs could be detected with a
strong- pocket lens.
Melanoplus femoratus (Burm.) .
The ovaries in this species occupy the
dorsum of the body from the meta-
thorax to the fifth abdominal segment
inclusive ; at the latter point the oviducts turn ventrad, clasping the alimentary
canal, meeting beneath and turning
backward together to the ovipositor ;
the tracheae pass between the ovaries
and the intestine and branch upon the
former.
A RARE TRACT,
THERE has lately been presented to the
library of the American Entomological Soci- ety by Mr. Wm. J. Fox, a small pamphlet
(34 X ji) from the library of the late T. R. Peale, which bears the tille : 'I Catalogue of the Lepidoptera of New Orleans and its
vicinity, prepared by L. von Reizenstein. Printed for R. C. Kerr, librarian of the New Orleans Academy of Sciences, New Orleans 1863." There are some items of interest in the catalogue to which attention may be
called. The following species are credited to the district mentioned.
" Pa-fiilio å´protesiZait Drn. Greenville, rare." This is given by Kirby as a synonym of Sinon Fabr.
" Goni09teryx eclfpsis" = Gone-fiferyx mae- rula Fabr.
" XantJiidia. (Terias) sylvatica Mas. rare, Western Lake Shore."
" Heliconia diapJiona " = Zikomia. &a-
fftanfa Dru. Dr. Scudder says of this species (Syn. List; Buff. Bull. 2, 246, 1875) : " I cannot find any authority for the occurrence of this butterfly within our limits,[excepting Edwards, Synopsis, and Mr. Edwards does
not recollect upon what grounds he placed it there."
" Aryynni." briarea Godt rare." " Lemin- itis ? cadmm Cram. ? -pfievecides Cram." These last two are synonyms of Aganistkos ackerof~fa Fabr.
" Apatura myops MSS. on elm trees."




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