Sri'.KAMILY I. - TRYXALIXJE. 



leaping power is therefore lessened; while in many of the smaller 

 species the wing expanse is too small to admit of sustained 

 flight. 



Our eastern members of Tryxaliuse for the most part frequent 

 the borders of marshes and damp prairie meadows, making their 

 home among the tall rank grasses and sedges which there abound. 

 They usually move by flying, making no noise while on the wing. 

 Several species, however, delight in sandy or clayey places, where 

 clumps of bunch and wire grass furnish them protection and food. 

 Their inner wings are never bright colored and showy as in the 

 next subfamily, and their tegmina have, for the most part, re- 

 mained a green or straw color in order to harmonize with their 

 chosen abiding places. The males stridulate, or call the opposite 

 sex to them, only when at rest by rubbing the inner surface of the 

 hing thighs against the lower edges of the wing covers. No one 

 of our species, unless it be ChortMppus curtijiciuiis (Harr.), oc- 

 curs in sufficient numbers to do much damage to vegetation, and 

 some of them are among the least common of the Acridid.p. In 

 Indiana and other northern states the winter of all is passed in 

 the egg stage, but farther south, especially in Florida, adults of 

 a half dozen or more species occur in numbers during that season. 



Aside from the general works on Orthoptera whose titles are 

 given in the Bibliography, the following treat especially of North 

 American Tryxalinse: Scudder, 1890, 1898a, 1899, 1899a ; Morse, 

 189G; McNeill, 1897; R. & H., 1916; Rehu, 1919. 



Thirty-eight genera and 90 species of Tryxalinre were listed by 

 Scudder (1900) from the United States, mostly from the region 

 west of the Mississippi, and a half dozen or more species have 

 since been described. Of these 16 genera and 26 species are known 

 from the Eastern States, no fewer than 9 genera being represented 

 by only a single species. For convenience of treatment the genera 

 are grouped into five trifies distinguished as follows : 



KEY TO EASTERX TRIBES OF SUBFAMILY TRYXALIX.^. 



a. Antennas ensiform or triquetrous, strongly depressed at base and dis- 

 tinctly acuminate (Fig. 72): median carina of pronotum cut much 

 behind the middle; face very strongly oblique; lateral carinse of 

 pronotum straight and parallel, except in Mermiria. 



Tribe I. TRYXALIXI, p. 194. 



aa. Antennas linear or filiform, sometimes narrowly depressed toward 

 base; median carina of pronotum usually cut at or not far behind the 

 middle; lateral carinas often more or less converging at middle. 

 6. Foveolse of vertex wanting or invisible from above; face usually 

 distinctly oblique or declivent. 



