FIELD BOOK OF INSECTS. 



are rarely seen by the layman except when they are so 

 unusually abundant as to be destructive. They feed on 

 the leaves of almost any sort of tree. The shot-like eggs 

 are dropped singly and promiscuously to the ground where 

 they lie over winter, or possibly over two winters. I once 

 found these insects so abundant in a Pennsylvania locality 

 that the trees were all but stripped of leaves and the 

 dropping eggs sounded like rain. 



The remainder of the Orthoptera typically have the 

 hind femora enlarged and thickened for leaping. 



ACRIDID/E 



By remembering that the antennae are always much 

 shorter than the body, one has no difficulty in recognizing 

 this family of Grasshoppers. The migratory Rocky 

 Mountain Locust (Melanoplus spretus}, which occasion- 

 ally has been so destructive in our West, and the Biblical 

 locusts, which were eaten with wild honey, belong here. 

 Some species make a rasping sound by rubbing their hind 

 legs against their front wings (tegmina); others rattle, 

 while flying, their hind wings against the tegmina. These 

 sounds are primarily amorous serenades and Nature's 

 serenades without attentive ears would be even more 

 curious than the ears for which the grasshoppers perform. 

 In this family there is an auditory organ on each side of the 

 first abdominal segment, just above and back of the places 

 where the large hind femora start. Notice the clear round 

 spot on the next grasshopper you catch. Short-horned 

 grasshoppers, as a rule, lay their eggs in clusters, under- 

 ground (Plate XVIII) ; perhaps you have noticed, in the 

 fall of the year, females along the path with their abdomens 

 sunk to the base in a small hole which they had made by 

 pushing aside the earth. 



These small grasshoppers, the Grouse 

 Locusts, are distinguished from their rela- 

 tives by their pronotum extending back to, or beyond, the 

 tip of the abdomen. There are numerous species, some 

 of which are quite variable and one of which (Acrydium 

 ornatus} is shown in Plate XVIII. Four genera may be 

 separated as follows: 



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