SUBFAMILY III. LOCUSTIN.13. 447 



to reach maturity about June 15th, perhaps earlier in the south- 

 ern counties, and has mostly disappeared by mid-September. It 

 frequents clover fields, open blue-grass pastures, prairies and 

 roadsides, and is to be found in both moist and dry localities. 

 When flushed, it usually leaps vigorously, seldom flying, and then 

 noiselessly and for a short distance. It delights to rest on the 

 branches and foliage of the iron-weeds and other Composite, and 

 is often found after death, clinging to them and to tall grasses, 

 where it has fallen a prey to the locust fungus. More than any 

 other of our Melanopli it seems to be subject to the attacks of the 

 red locust mite, Trombidiuui loc-nsiannn Riley. In August I once 

 noted a large male with a dozen or more of the mites in different 

 stages, attached to the membrane of the inner wings. A female 

 near by, with both tegmina and wings absent, had more than 20 

 of the mites clinging to the thin membrane beneath the meta- 

 thorax. Old and worn examples of this locust usually have the 

 wings badly damaged. 



After more than 15 years additional observation I see no reason 

 to change my former (1003, 331) placement of Burmeister's red- 

 legged fciiioratus as an absolute synonym of Say's biwttatus. 

 Most of the recent writers have either retained femoratus as dis- 

 tinct or made it a variety of birittatus, biTt none of them have as 

 yet pointed out a single fixed structural character of specific or 

 even varietal value on which to base their retention of the name 

 femoratus. Scudder in his key (1897, 138) separated them solely 

 by the difference in color of the tibia?, and in his subsequent de- 

 scription of bivittatus (p. 367) adds: "Besides the differences in 

 the hind tibiae, there are other slight ones which I have attempted 

 to state, in the abdominal appendages and in the tegmina, besides 

 some distinction in the color," but he nowhere points out definite- 

 ly these minor distinctions except in the cerci as mentioned far- 

 ther on. In Indiana one can find in almost every colony not only 

 red-legged and greenish-legged individuals, but often those in 

 which the tibi?e are brown at base, greenish or glaucous in the 

 middle and red on the apical third. 



As far back as 1859 that astute observer, Philip R. Uhler 

 (1859, II, 238), said of bivittatus: "Belongs to Caloptciiu* and is 

 identical with C. femoratus Burm. It is very common on the salt 

 marshes near Baltimore and I have once or twice seen it in com- 

 pany with C. fetnur-rubruin (DeGeer) in considerable swarms in 

 the air." Scudder himself (1862, 466) followed Uhler without 

 comment, but (1878, 285) reversed his opinion without giving 

 reasons other than distributional as follows: "J/. femoratus is 



