SUBFAMILY III. LOCUSTINJE. 415 



taken in every county in which collections have been made. It 



begins to reach maturity the latter part of 

 May, and from then until late November 

 may be noted almost anywhere in open blue- 

 grass pastures and woods, borders of road- 

 Fig. 142. Male. Natural size, sides and cultivated fields, meadows and 

 lawns. Numerous examples have been found pairing as late as 

 November 22d, and it may be that there are two broods each sea- 

 son. In late spring and early summer they are often seen resting 

 on iron-weeds and thistles in company with M. f/raciUs, M. luridus 

 and other species. The cast off skin of their final moult is often 

 noted on such weeds, showing that the nymph climbs thereon to 

 change its garment of youth for one of maturity. 



Atlanis is very often found associated with the more common 

 M. femur-rubnnn and is considered that species by most persons 

 who deign to notice such a thing as a locust. The male, however, 

 may be readily distinguished from that of femur-rubrum by the 

 notched apex of subgenital plate, the shorter and less tapering 

 cerci, and by the greater relative length of the tegmina, which 

 extend one-fourth or more their length beyond the tip of abdomen. 

 The dark spots on tegmina are also larger and more distinct in 

 atlanis. The female of citlanis may be known by the yellow color 

 of the under side of abdomen which in femur-rubrum is reddish- 

 brown ; and also by the more distinctly banded hind femora and 

 more tapering and sharper pointed prosternal spine. The earlier 

 specimens of atlanis are in general lighter colored and have rela- 

 tively longer tegmina than those of late autumn, which are very 

 dark gray in hue. The hind tibiie are normally pale red, but in 

 about 8 per cent, of the specimens they are either red at tip and 

 otherwise colored, or dull yellow, or glaucous, the males having 

 them more variable in hue than the females. 



The range of atlanis is a very wide one, extending from New 

 England and Nova Scotia north to latitude 50 and the Yukon 

 River, west to the Pacific and south to northern Florida, Texas 

 and middle California. In Florida it has been recorded only from 

 Marianna, where Morse took specimens on August G. He states 

 (1904, 42) that it "is probably the most widely and generally dis- 

 tributed of all the locusts inhabiting the Southeastern States, 

 breeding from sea-level to the summit of Roan Mountain." R. & H. 

 (1916, 237) state that (it-fan is is "relatively infrequent in the 

 Coastal Plain south of North Carolina and the lower Gulf drain- 

 age of Southern Georgia," the only known South Georgia locality 

 being Thomasville. 



