SUBFAMILY I. BACUNCULINJE. 



133 



52. DIAPHEROMERA FEMORATA (Say), 1824a, 297. Common Walking-stick. 



Color variable, being either gray, brown or greenish-brown; body of 



\male usually greenish-brown, sometimes 

 almost wholly green; head yellowish with 

 three vague lengthwise fuscous stripes; 

 \i front legs and tibiae of the others usually 



/ / green; middle femora often banded with 



dark gray; female duller, usually gray- 

 ish-brown, often with paler specks and 

 mottlings on head and back. Head 

 smooth in both sexes, subquadrate; eyes 

 round, more prominent in male; antennae 

 very slender, about as long as body. Ab- 

 domen smooth, basal segment about twice 

 as long as broad in female, three times 

 as long as broad in male, seventh seg- 

 ment in male three times as long as 

 eighth. Cerci of male cylindrical, oval at 

 apex, clothed with short stiff hairs, 

 strongly curved inward and usually cross- 

 ing near middle; of female, straight 

 stout, rather blunt, pubescent. The male 

 is easily distinguished by the shorter and 

 more slender body, longer legs and an- 

 tennae, narrower and less dilated front 

 femora, swollen middle femora and by the 

 greater stoutness of the subapical spines 

 beneath the middle and hind femora. 

 Length of body, $, 6884, 9, 70101; of 

 antenna?, $, 58 65, 9, 45 57; of rneso- 

 thorax, $, 1718, 9, 1620; of metatho- 

 rax, $ 



mora, 



Fig. 55. Diapheromera femorata i fritr r 



(Say.) Male. 



1516, 9, 13.518; of hind fe- 

 $, 19.521, 9, 1519 mm. 



This walking-stick is quite a common insect throughout In- 

 diana, though the average observer will probably see but one or 

 two of them a year. They reach maturity in August, and may 

 then often be found upon the leaves of oak or wild cherry, espe- 

 cially on isolated trees along fence rows. One of my students at 

 Terre Haute once brought in on October 15, a hundred or more 

 which he had gotten from a wild cherry tree on whose leaves they 

 had been feeding. It moves very slowly and has a habit of re- 

 maining motionless and apparently dead for a considerable length 

 of time. On such occasions it usually stretches itself out from a 

 twig with its front legs and antennae extended, and can then 



