SUBFAMILY III. LOCUSTINJE. 421 



"The immediate distribution of this insect appears to be controlled al- 

 together by climatic conditions, the chief of which is the presence of a cer- 

 tain amount of humidity. It is a frequenter of low grounds, cultivated 

 fields, shady margins of woods, etc., where vegetation is rank and tender. 

 It is rarely found upon dry hillsides when meadows close at hand may 

 swarm with them, while the opposite is true of other species, M. 1itri<Ins for 

 instance; yet such specimens as do so occur will be found to differ from 

 those inhabiting more favored localities, in being lighter colored and more 

 uniformly grayish in tone, with slighter contrasts; those from dryer sta- 

 tions appear also to have on the average rather shorter wings. There is 

 but. a single annual brood which begins to appear full fledged in New Eng- 

 land late in July. According to Riley, the eggs are not laid in a single 

 mass, but at intervals in several; he has twice obtained four successive 

 pods from a single female, covering a period of nearly two months and 

 containing eggs amounting in all to from ninety-six to one-hundred and ten. 



"At Andover, Massachusetts, on October 5 many years ago, I observed 

 a pair of this species, male and female, near together alternately signaling 

 to each other with a slight quick movement, of the hind legs upon the teg- 

 mina, as if stridnlating. I made no note of whether any sound was ac- 

 tually produced and do not now recall any." 



The Caloptcnus (Icrordtor Scudder (1875b, 474) and the Mclan- 

 ophis interior Scudder (1879, 71) are stated by their author (1897, 

 2S.'> ) to be synonyms of M. femur-ntbrum, as is also Caloptcnus 

 sanguinolentus Frov. 



196a. MELA]\ T OPLT_ T S FEMUR-RUBRUM PROPINQUUS Scudder, 1897b, 24. South- 

 ern Red-legged Locust. 



Differs from typical femnr-rubrum mainly in the characters given in 

 key, the color of fresh specimens being usually a pale or olive-brown, tinged 

 with rosaceous, sometimes with greenish. Fuscous spots of tegmina, es- 

 pecially in female, larger and more abundant. Hind femora dull greenish- 

 yellow, the fuscous bars of upper face faint or wanting. Supra-anal plate 

 with apex more blunt and margins less thickened. Furcula longer, more 

 evenly tapering, their apical halves less widely separated. Average size 

 somewhat larger, a male at hand from Gainesville, Fla., being 26, and a 

 female 27 mm. in length. 



This, the southern form of friinir-rnhnnii, has been taken by 

 me at Ormond, Gainesville, Sanford. Sarasota, Ft. Myers and 

 Dunedin, Fla. It is almost as common in northern Florida as 

 femur-rubrum is in Indiana but becomes scarce in the southern 

 part of the State and is not known from the southern keys. My 

 first specimens were taken at Ormond on March 27, IS!)!!, and re- 

 corded (1902, 115) as found in "an old abandoned orange grove. 

 The males were abundant, the females just emerging from the 

 final moult. It is a slender-bodied, long-winged species, dull in 

 color but graceful in movement. They are active leapers, and 

 when flushed usually fly noiselessly for several rods, then settle 

 down upon a bunch of grass, the color of which is grayish-brown, 



