1915.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 297 



is in each wholly different. Other species, such as Gryllus desertus, 

 chinensis, afer and serviUei, show less striking features, but exhibit 

 a complex of characters which prove them to be distinctive forms, 

 worthy of specific rank. It would be ill advised, however, to attempt 

 detailed diagnoses of the exotic species except in a monographic 

 study of the genus. 



Specific Description. — Size variable (length ranging from 14 to 

 28.8 mm.^); form robust (two general types are developed, one, 

 particularly found in typical assimilis, somewhat more robust and 

 compact than the other, which latter is the normal condition in the 

 great majority of variants developed in the temperate regions). Head 

 slightly broader than pronotum (except in a rare megacephalic 

 condition; in this there is no flattening of the face at the clypeal 

 suture as found in megacephalic males of Miogryllus, and to an even 

 greater degree comprehending the entire face in males of several 

 species of the genus Scapsipedus''). Pronotum with proportionate 

 length of disk somewhat variable, but with this dimension usuallj' 

 contained in the width about 1.4 times, caudal margin of disk straight 

 to distinctly bisinuate, lateral lobes with ventral margin straight and 

 horizontal, or occasionally weakly declivent cephalad, ventro- 

 cephalic and ventro-caudal angles rectangulate, the former rather 

 broadly rounded, the latter more decidedly so, the caudal portion of 

 the lateral lobes is somewhat pressed inward, particularly ventrad. 

 In length the tegmina vary from less than half to fully the ab- 

 dominal length, in some phases their apices are situated externo- 

 laterad, though normally mesad. The wangs are either developed as 

 complete organs of flight (though never to the extent found in the 



^ These extremes are nearly equalled in two male specimens before us, both 

 of the scudderianus variant and both from Miami, Florida: length of body, 

 14.5 and 28. .5; pronotum, 3.1 and 5.7; caudal femur, 9.1 and 16; tegmen, 9.3 

 and 17.9; wings, (concealed) and 27; caudal width of pronotum, 4.6 and 8.1 mm. 



^ It is with considerable surprise that we find material of Scapsipedus limbatus 

 Saussure (referable to the variety africanus, if valid), in material before us from 

 Cuba and Jamaica. The males are easily separable from those of Gryllus by the 

 very peculiar head, but the females are instead perfectly normal in this respect; 

 no dark form of Gryllus found in America, however, having the transverse yellow 

 markings between the eyes found in the species of Scapsipedus. In the present 

 insect the males have a sharply defined band of this color between the oceUi, 

 while the females have an additional band just below, between the ventral 

 margins of the eyes and an elongate triangular mesal spot of the same color 

 below, the apex of which touches this latter band. We mention this species here 

 as females collected at some future time in the West Indies, where the species 

 has almost certainly been accidentally introduced from Africa by man, might 

 easily be confused with Gryllus. The genus Scapsipedus is African and Oriental, 

 limbatus is described from Madagascar, the variety africanus by inference from 

 Africa. 



