132 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [Feb., 



bushes in irrigated ground along the Rio Grande. The Seminole 

 specimen was taken from grass growing on a sandy spot. 



Mermiria texana Brunei-. 



This beautiful species is essentially one of the rough desert moun- 

 tains and foothills, the altitude at which it occurs being between 

 4,000 and 5,500 feet. On the rugged slopes of the Franklin Moun- 

 tains and their broken foothills three males and one immature 

 female were captured on July 9, while on a rocky desert hill at Aden a 

 pair were taken on July 21. An immature female from the lower 

 slopes of the Florida Mountains, July 19, belongs to this species. A 

 series of nine adult specimens of the species in the brown phase is now 

 before us and surprisingly little difference in coloration is exhibited. 

 Aside from the medio-longitudinal bar on the head and pronotum 

 which is pale in one specimen, the only appreciable color variations 

 are that the caudal tibiae range from pale pinkish, through vermilion 

 to solferino, and the antennas are more obscure in some specimens than 

 in others. 



Individuals of the species are alert and quick to take wing, in fact 

 this is one of the most difficult insects to capture among the Orthoptera 

 of the Southwest. 



PAROPOMALA Scudder. 



In studying the series of Paropomala contained in the collection it 

 was found necessary to critically examine the descriptions of all the 

 species of the genus. Aside from the unique and little known P. 

 dissimilis Bruner, the only species not easily located was P. virgata 

 Scudder, very briefly described from Mesilla, New Mexico, between 

 Gila Bend and Yuma, Arizona, Palm Springs, Cahon Pass, Lancaster 

 and Kern City, California. In reply to a request for typical material 

 of the species, Prof. Morse very kindly loaned us cotypes from all 

 the typical localities, and on careful study it develops that at least 

 two species are included in the series on which virgata was based. 

 The Mesilla individuals belong to a short comparatively robust species 

 found at several localities in the Rio Grande valley, while the southern 

 Californian and Arizonan individuals belong to the species later called 

 pallida by Bruner. One cotype from Kern City may be distinct from 

 pallida of the Mohave, Colorado and Gila desert regions, having the 

 fastigium very broad and the pronotum narrower than usual, but with- 

 out additional material its separation does not seem warranted, inas- 

 much as forty-nine specimens of the species from Arizona, California 

 and Nevada exhibit a great amount of individual variation. 



