242 



FAMILY VI. ACRIDID.E. THE LOCUSTS. 



times greater. The first, a quarter of a second in length, is duller 

 than the others and is followed by a pause of a quarter of a sec- 

 ond. The other notes are of the same length but sharply sounded, 

 and follow each other rapidly." 



105. MECOSTETHUS PLATYPTERUS (Scudder), 1862, 463. Broad-winged Sedge- 

 Locust. 



More slender and compressed than either lineatus or gracilis. Dark 

 reddish-brown, the yellow marking of head and pronotum almost obsolete; 

 male with supra-anal plate, styles and a median stripe on ninth abdominal 

 segment black; color otherwise as in gracilis. Vertex obtusely triangular, 

 its median carina high; foveolae very faint; antennae of male longer, 

 darker and more slender than in gracilis. Disk of pronotum of almost 

 equal width throughout, the metazona only rugose. Tegmina of male 

 longer and narrower than in gracilis, surpassing tips of hind femora 1 3 

 mm., the rasp of intercalary vein much as in gracilis. Length of body, 



$, 2326, $, 3540; of antennae, $, 1112.5, $, 1011; of tegmina, $, 

 1921, $, 2425; of hind femora, $, 1516.5, $, 17.520.5 mm. 



(Fig. 89.) 



Thompson, Conn., Aug. 25 (Morse}. A scarce species known 

 in New England only from Massachusetts and Connecticut and 

 recorded elsewhere only from Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota. As 

 in the other species the females seem to be much the less abund- 

 ant, but this is probably due to their sluggish habit of tumbling 

 down and hiding when approached rather than taking to flight 

 like the more active males. At Thompson, Conn., Morse (1896, 445) 



"found it in company 

 with U neat us and im- 

 possible to distin- 

 guish from that spe- 

 cies when 



though 



flying, 

 its flight is 



less sustained and 

 it is decidedly more 

 difficult to flush." 



Fig. 89. Male. X i-8. (After Somes.) J R Illinois Hart 



(1907, 231) has recorded it only from low ground on a glacial 

 flood plain at Teheran, June 22, and from dense grass in wet 

 ground at Champaign, July 31. The Iowa record (Ball, 1897) is 

 based on a single specimen from a meadow at Little Rock. In 

 Minnesota Somes (1914, 28) reports it as occurring at Mesaba 

 and Allen Junction, July 25, in the dense tangles of tamarack 

 swamps, the immature stages being not at all rare, but only a 

 few adults found. 



