164 FAMILY V. TETRIGID.E. THE GROUSE LOCUSTS. 



This slender grouse locust has an especial liking for marshy 

 and boggy tracts about the margins of lakes and tamarack 

 swamps, though it is likely to occur anywhere in low wet woods, 

 and one specimen was taken in Marion County April 15, while 

 swimming on the surface of a woodland pond. It is sometimes, 

 however, found in dry localities as Somes (1914, 11) records not- 

 ing a colony in a sandy cultivated field in Iowa, at least a mile 

 from any stream or body of water, Avhere they were feeding upon 

 the tender sterns of young grain. In Vigo Co., Ind., it was found 

 hibernating February 20 beneath logs along the sandy border 

 of a large river-bottom pond. The light band along the middle 

 line of pronotum is in a high degree protective when the locusts 

 dwell among the grasses and sedges of marshy tracts, as it har- 

 monizes with the dried blades of these plants. 



Hancock (1902, 72) records the finding of graiinlatiun in Wis- 

 consin on the ground ''about prostrate tree trunks, which were 

 molding in decay and covered with greenish lichens and mosses. 

 The yellowish and brownish fallen leaves were everywhere scat- 

 tered over the bed of the forest. Occasionally, when the wind was 

 not blowing, I was able to mark the presence of the little locusts 

 by the sound made as they jumped upon the dried leaves." Morse 

 (1894a, 163) says that "in New England this species prefers 

 sedgy meadow lands and swales on sandy soil occasionally flooded 

 by rains or freshets and perpetually moist. The bulk of my speci- 

 mens were taken on a boggy swamp which had been filled in with 

 sand, and on which water stood more or less of the time." Baker 

 found grunulatinii hibernating beneath stones at Ft. Collins, Col., 

 while in Michigan Hebard took it in early July about marshy 

 spots on logging trails where they were very active, springing sev- 

 eral feet when flushed. Scudder (1898c) states that it has several 

 times been taken close to the summit of Mt. Washington and 

 occurs everywhere in New England. 



A form with the pronotum and wings more or less abbreviated 

 is occasionally found with the common form of yranultilinn. To it 

 Hancock has given the varietal name variegatus.* 5 Tcttl.r Jn</</<'i'i 

 Hancock (1897, 109), recorded from Minnesota and Illinois, is a 

 synonym of f/ninultitmn. It was distinguished only by having 

 the front border of vertex convex instead of obtuse-angulate, and 

 both Hancock (1902, 73) and Somes (1914, 11) record the finding 



35 Another form with wider pronotum, the incurvata Hancock, described from Wash- 

 ington, Colorado and New Mexico, is listed by Morse (1919) from Northern New Eng- 

 land as a variety of granulatum. Its status is as yet uncertain. 



