286 FAMILY VI. ACRIDID^E. THE LOCUSTS. 



ways, and the sparsely clothed sandy 

 stretches just back of the beach on the 

 Gulf side of Hog Island. The specimens 

 taken at the latter place were much paler 

 than those from the mainland and were 

 at first thought to be Triinerotrojns 

 inaritiina (Harris). 



Morse (1904, 37) first suggested the 



Fig. 105. Tegmen and wing 



of male of 5. m. ficta. x i-s- possibility* of nic'ta being a southern race 



(After R. & H.) . . & 



of marmorata, an opinion accepted by K. 



& H. (1912, 254) after the comparison of numerous specimens from 

 North Carolina showing iutergrading characters. The known 

 range of 8. in', /ncta extends from Southern Pines, N. Car., west to 

 Augusta, Ga., and south and southwest throughout peninsular 

 Florida and to Gulfport, Miss. Throughout this range it is found 

 usually in small colonies, in sandy spots of open woods, often in 

 company with Psinidia fcncstralis (Serv.), being more abundant 

 immediately along the seacoast than farther inland. Fresh speci- 

 mens easily rank among the most handsome of our southern lo- 

 custs. T first became acquainted with plcta at Ormond, Fla., in 

 March, 1S99, and a field note regarding its habits (1902, 84) is as 

 follows : "In an old orange orchard I found the male of the parti- 

 colored sand locust, Scirtetica picta (Scudd.), more abundant 

 than at any time before. He has the most prolonged stridulation 

 of any locust known to me. He zig-zags in his flight almost at 

 right angles, sometimes staying in the air for half a minute, fly- 

 ing all about an acre or more, and finally alighting on the sand 

 within a yard of where he arose. All the time he is up he sounds 

 his musical organ with every stroke of his wings, making a loud 

 z-rr-zrr-zrr, like the subdued note of the harvest fly. Cicada pnti- 

 nosa L., or the prolonged and angry buzz of a big bumble-bee. This 

 locust has so far been recorded only from Georgia and Florida, 

 though it will doubtless be found farther north in sandy fields 

 close to the coast." 



Tribe II. TRIMBROTROPI. 



The members of this tribe of Oedipodinte are generally smaller 

 and much less bulky than those of the preceding genera. All agree 

 in having the median carina of pronotum (except in Mestobregttia) 

 very low, nearly straight, cut feebly but distinctly on prozona by 

 the first transverse sulcus, again at or slightly in front of middle, 

 and more deeply by the principal sulcus (Fig. 106, c). The disk 

 of prozona is often more or less strongly constricted while that 



