24 ORTHOPTERA OF NORTHEASTERN AMERICA. 



but undergoing great changes of form. Thus the homely and often 

 repulsive grubs, maggots and caterpillars, which are the larval 

 forms of the beetles, flies and butterflies, respectively, enter the 

 third stage as worm-like crawling creatures, and emerge from it 

 as beautiful winged forms, sometimes glistening and gleaming 

 with all the colors of the rainbow. This change of life and form 

 is undoubtedly of great advantage to the most of this group of 

 insects, as it tends to prevent the extinction of the species ; since, 

 if at a given moment the parents were swept out of existence, the 

 young, living in a different station, would continue to represent 

 the species. 



The second group, the Heterometabola, comprises those insects 

 in Avhich the metamorphosis is incomplete:, the young, when 

 hatched from the egg being wholly wingless and of the same gen- 

 eral form as the parent. As the insect grows it moults its skin a 

 number of times and wings develop gradually, there being no 

 sharp line defining the larval and pupal stages. The young of all 

 stages are called nymphs and continue active and feed from the 

 time of hatching until they reach the final moult and emerge 

 therefrom mature or in the imago stage. The number of moults 

 which Orthoptera undergo varies in the different families. In 

 the true locusts there are five, while cockroaches and some man- 

 tids are said to have as many as seven. 



It is to this second group, the Heterometabola, whose members 

 undergo an incomplete metamorphosis, that the Orthoptera, the 

 order of which this paper treats, belong. From other orders of 

 the group, as the Hemiptera or true bugs, Odonata or dragonflies, 

 etc., the Orthoptera may be known &?/ having the wings, when 

 present, net veined, four in number, the outer pair leathery or 

 parchment-like and usually overlapping when at rest', the inner 

 /xiir thinner, more delicate and folded in plaits like a fan-, mouth 

 parts biting; hind legs in the greater number of forms, greatly en- 

 larged for leaping. The name Orthoptera is derived from two 

 Greek words, orthos, straight, and pteron. a wing, and refers to 

 the longitudinal folding of the hind wings. The fore wings, or 

 tegmina, are not used in flight, the hind pair alone being used 

 for that purpose. 



ENEMIES OF ORTHOPTERA. 



With the exception of the Mantids, all our Orthoptera are 

 injurious, most of them being vegetable feeders. Were it not for 

 the many natural enemies which prey upon them, they would 



