SUBFAMILY III. LOCUSTIX.E. 



369 



cc. Smaller, males not over 16.8 mm. in length; dorsal surface of 

 abdomen of male in great part fuscous; subapical tubercle of 

 subgenital plate very distinct. 164. NUBILUS. 



Fig. 128. Dorsal views of supra-anal plates and furcula of males of Melanoplus. X 

 10. a, dccorus; b, australis', c, attenuates; d, hebardi; e, nubilus. (After R. & H.) 



161. MELANOPLUS DECORUS Scudder, 1897b, 13. 



Size small, slender; females more robust, much the larger. Brown, 

 more or less infuscated, greenish-yellow beneath. Occiput, disk of prono- 

 tum, metapleurse and sides of abdomen in great part fuscous. Face green- 

 ish-yellow flecked with fuscous; antennae reddish-yellow, darker toward 

 tips; cheeks, lower half of pronotal lobes and front and middle legs yel- 

 low. Tegmina pale brown. Hind femora reddish-yellow, the outer face 

 often infuscate, knees in great part black, inner and lower faces bright 

 yellow. Hind tibiae pale green, spines black. Female duller, sometimes 

 melanistic, then a nearly uniform fuscous brown. Interocular space nar- 

 rower than first antennal joint, male, as wide as frontal costa, female. 

 Fastigium narrowly and shallowly concave, male, more broadly so, female. 

 Frontal costa narrow, feebly or not at all sulcate. Prozona two-thirds 

 longer than metazona, its disk feebly convex, male, strongly rounded into 

 lateral lobes, female; metazona nearly flat, finely rugose-punctate, hind 

 margin subtruncate or very broadly rounded. Tegmina oval, reaching 

 front margin of third abdominal segment, slightly shorter than pronotum, 

 male, one-third shorter, female, their inner margins slightly separated, 

 male, by one-half their width, female. Supra-anal plate of male elongate- 

 triangular, apex subacute, margins of apical half thickened, convex and 

 paralleled within by a pair of short blunt ridges, these strongly converg- 

 ing but not meeting near apex; median sulcus narrow on basal half of 

 plate, expanded on apical half (Fig. 128, a. ) Furcula elongate, tapering, 

 divergent, lying on sides of basal median ridges. Cerci longer than supra- 

 anal plate, basal third rather broad, strongly tapering, apical fourth feebly 

 expanded, one-third as wide as base, strongly incurved, the tip broadly 

 rounded (Fig. 127, a.) Length of body, $, 1720, 9, 20.5 25.3; of an- 

 tennae, $,12, 9, 8.5; of pronotum, $, 4.1, 95.5; of tegmina, $, 4 4.8. 

 9,4; of hind femora, $ 9.5 11, 9, 13 mm. 



This locust is known only from North Carolina, where it has 

 been taken near Wilmington, Winter Park, Lake Waccamaw, 

 Dingo IJluff and Newbern, Sept. 7 Nov. 15. R. & H. ( lOlfi, 215) 

 state that their specimens from Winter Park were found "among 

 low plants and scant grasses about a swampy depression in pine 

 woods; those from Wilmington in the wet mucky border of a 

 swampy tract which was covered thickly with grasses, pitcher 

 plants and venus' fly-traps, and dotted with low bushes." 



