SUBFAMILY I. TRYXALIN.E. 241 



general more northern, extending from Newfoundland and Nova 

 Scotia north and west through Canada to Edmonton, Alta., and 

 in the United States from Maine to the Black Hills of South Da- 

 kota. West of New England it is not recorded south of Michigan 

 and Minnesota, except from eastern Nebraska, where Bruner 

 (1897) reported it as quite common in meadows and along 

 streams. 



Of its habits in New England Morse (1896, 444) says: "Both 

 sexes fly well, but the male is the more active and appears three 

 or four times as plentiful. I have found it in wet sedgy meadows, 

 in bushy swamps and on mountain tops. On Grey lock it is com- 

 mon in the low grasses and bushes of the extreme summit, and 

 on Mt. Washington in the sedgy area called the 'cow pasture.' 

 It is rather shy, taking readily to wing and flying straight for 

 two or three rods, then dropping rather suddenly into the grass." 

 Somes (1914) calls it "an especially attractive insect, its trim, 

 neat lines and pleasing coloration serving to distinguish it from 

 its congeners. All of our captures of it in Minnesota were acci- 

 dental in sweeping and in every case it has been taken from 

 Carices." 



Near Pequaming, Mich., Hebard found it abundant in a clear- 

 ing of several acres in the woods, Aug. 1 21, and says: 



"The grass growing over the lower portion of this clearing was very 

 thick and high and on approaching it on the morning of Aug. 1, a new 

 sound met my ears, a loud, harsh, connected stridulation, repeated at in- 

 tervals of a few seconds. Following up these sounds I was at length able 

 to procure several specimens of this beautiful insect. They had all very 

 recently emerged and were easy to capture with the net as they flew up, 

 but when on alighting they hid in the grass, they were almost impossible 

 to find, as they blended exactly with their surroundings. The females did 

 not appear till a week later and, at the best time of the season, a morn- 

 ing's search would never reveal more than two or three of them ; they were 

 very lubberly and could hardly jump. The life color of the male was a 

 rich grass-green, beautifully shaded and contrasting strongly with the car- 

 mine of the inner surfaces of the hind femora, while that of the female 

 was yellowish-brown, the red inner surfaces of hind femora much paler 

 than in the male." 



Of the stridulating organs of M. yracilis Piers (1896, 215) says : 

 "The stridulating area of the wing of this species is large and 

 prominent and stridulation may be easily produced in the dead 

 insect by moving the hind femora against the wings." Scudder 

 (189:5, 7<>) describes the note, stating that it is louder than that 

 produced by any other Tryxalid and can be heard at a distance of 

 50 feet. "It usual Iv makes four notes but the number is some- 



