450 FAMILY VI. ACRIDID.E. THE LOCUSTS. 



By keeping down weed patches and by plowing waste places about fence 

 corners, along ravines, the edges of groves and old roads, this insect can 

 usually be kept moderately scarce and harmless." 



Piers (1918, 306) states that in Nova Scotia J/. Mvittatns ranks 

 next to M. fciiitir-ru~bntni, HL attains and the crickets among de- 

 structive Orthoptera. He also writes of its habits as follows : 



"Near the mouth opening of insects are salivary glands which in the 

 Acridida? usually secrete a brown-colored fluid, which is also probably de- 

 fensive in character as many species when captured very readily exude it 

 from the mouth. This is particularly noticeable in M. bivittatus, and 

 country children have everywhere given the dark-coloured secretion the 

 name of 'grasshopper molasses,' and to the insect itself thej occasionally 

 apply the name 'molasses bug.' This species is often captured by Nova 

 Scotian children for the sole purpose of seeing it exude the fluid, their 

 invariable saying on such an occasion being, 'grasshopper, grasshopper, 

 give me some molasses and I'll let you go.' It is also known to many 

 children as a doughty fighter, boys often amusing themselves by bring- 

 ing two large specimens together so that they wrestle vigorously with 

 their front legs and endeavor to bite each other. These gay coloured lo- 

 custs bring back childish memories of half forgotten summer days when 

 we dallied waist-deep in the lush timothy, the air filled with what might 

 be termed the 'green' scent of trampled grass; or of afternoons in early 

 autumn when we loafed about the rank vegetation of fence-rows with its 

 odour of dank decay." 



Series XVII. THE PUNCTULATUS GROUP. 



As this group is also represented by only a single species and 

 its variety, the characters are as given in the Series key and in 

 the following description : 



209. MELANOPLUS PUNCTULATUS (Scudder), 1862, 465. Grizzly Locust. 



Size medium for the genus, the males but little the smaller. Above 

 dark gray, much mottled with blackish; beneath dull reddish-brown to 

 clay-yellow. Head and face greenish-gray mottled with fuscous; occiput 

 and disk of prozona darker, the usual black bar behind eye on upper half of 

 lateral lobes often broken and somewhat indistinct. Disk and sides of rnet- 

 azona and entire surface of tegmina sprinkled with numerous rounded or 

 quadrate fuscous spots, which give to the insect a grizzly appearance, quite 

 distinct from that of any other of our Melanopli. Hind femora alternately 

 and plainly barred with blackish and dull yellow on the upper and outer 

 faces, the lower face and basal third of inner face coral reel. Hind tibia? 

 either dull red or gray, or a mixture of both, the spines black. Head promi- 

 nent; occiput swollen and distinctly elevated above the pronotum; fasti- 

 gium rapidly sloping, sulcate throughout, the margins much raised between 

 the eyes, which are separated by a space scarcely as wide as basal joint of 

 antennae, male, one-half wider, female. Frontal costa convex and promi- 

 nent above the antenna?, of equal width throughout, feebly sulcate below 

 the ocellus. Eyes large, very prominent in male. Pronotum with front 

 border slightly flaring to receive the head; disk but little if any widening 



