442 FAMILY VI. ACRIDIDJE. THE LOCUSTS. 



six of beetles, all injurious, so that this bird, although savage and 

 blood-thirsty, is of great benefit to the farmer and fruit grower. 



East of the Mississippi the known range of J/. differentialis 

 extends from New Jersey and Pennsylvania north and west to 

 rheboygan Co., Michigan and Illinois, south and west through 

 Tennessee to Agricultural College, Miss. It appears to be scarce 

 and recently introduced east of the Appalachian Mountains, hav- 

 ing been recorded only from near Camden and several other points 

 in New Jersey and the vicinity of Philadelphia, Pa. Kehn (1900a) 

 says that it was first seen about Philadelphia in 1896. In 1898 

 they "appeared about August 1 on the weeds on lots and even in 

 the iron manufacturing sections of the city, where there is abso- 

 lutely no vegetation." Fox (1914, 514) states that it was then 

 abundant in the low marshy lands adjoining the lower Delaware 

 River and its tributaries. It is not mentioned by Fox (1917) nor 

 by McAtee and Caudell (1918) and therefore apparently does not 

 occur in the east as far south as Virginia and Washington, D. C. 

 In Tennessee it is known from Clarksville, Danville and Chatta- 

 nooga. The Mississippi specimens at hand were taken by H. E. 

 Weed in September, 1892. It is not recorded from Canada, and 

 but once from Michigan, Vestal (1914, 108) stating that at Doug- 

 las Lake it was "not abundant, being near the northern limit of 

 its range." 



West of the Mississippi differentialis ranges from 45 north 

 latitude over practically the entire country as far west as the 

 Pacific and south to Southern Mexico. Scudder says that he does 

 not think it occurs above 6,000 feet, and Gillette states that in 

 Colorado, where it is abundant and destructive in the lower alti- 

 tudes, it has not been taken above 5,500 feet. In Minnesota Somes 

 (1914, 92) states that it has been taken as yet only in the southern 

 part of the State, it and M. birittatus being "the only locusts 

 found far in from the margins of thoroughly worked lands such 

 as corn fields. The eggs are deposited in loose soil or even sand, 

 often in cultivated fields. Fn September we have noted great 

 numbers, literally thousands, of the females drilling and ovi- 

 positing in an abandoned melon patch where the soil was a soft 

 and very sandy loam. They were not under the vines, for the 

 most part, but every spot of bare soil was occupied by one or 

 more of the females." 



Bruuer, on the other hand (1893, 16), says that: 



"The eggs are laid in cultivated grounds that are more or less com- 

 pact, preferably old roads, deserted fields, the edges of weed patches and 

 well grazed pastures adjoining weedy ravines. Egg laying begins about 



