212 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [April, 



Melanoplus viridipes Scudder. 



1897. Melanoplus juvencus Scudder, Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc, XXXVI, 

 p. 14. Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., XX, pp. 1.29, 266, PI. XVIII, fig. 1. 

 [No locality for described type. 77 ] 



The above synonymy is due to a most unusual confusion of material. 

 Scudder, apparently by accident, placed a specimen of M. viridipes 

 without data in his series of M. puer. Later, finding it to be different 

 from that species, he had the specimen figured and described it as 

 M. juvencus. This specimen is now in the Scudder collection, marked • 

 Scudder's type M. juvencus and "drawn"; it has been selected as 

 the single type, for it is the specimen which furnished the original 

 description and figure of juvencus. It was necessary to select a 

 single type, for although, with the description Scudder figured and 

 described but one specimen, he derived the data given there, "Fort 

 Reed, Orange County, Florida, April 8; Comstock, " from another 

 male specimen of the type series of M . puer, which specimen he also 

 marked Scudder's type M. juvencus. His work was apparently 

 done carelessly and at different times, other explanation for such an 

 occurrence being incomprehensible. 



Melanoplus deceptus Morse. 



Black Mountain, North Carolina, VI, Clavton, Rabun Countv, Georgia, VI, 

 1912, (W. Beutenmiiller), 2 cf, 3 9, 1909, (W. T. Davis)," 1 d\ 



[Davis Cln.]. 



The Decorus Group of the Genus Melanoplus. 



Five-species of this group are found in the Sabalian or Basic Austral 

 zone of the southeastern United States, which are all closely related 

 and are among the more formative elements of the plastic genus 

 Melanoplus. No intergradation between the forms is shown by the 

 material before us, but in every large series a certain slight amount 

 of variation often gives evidence of the derivation of the members 

 of the group. It is our opinion that five valid species exist in the 

 known material of the group and that no geographic races are 

 represented. 



Of these five species Scudder placed decorus in his Inornatus 

 Series, and attenuatus in his Fasciatus Series, both of which series 

 are anomalous aggregations of widely separated forms. The 

 senior author in describing hebardi placed it in the genus Eotettix, 

 since Scudder chiefly separated that genus from Melanoplus by the 

 male subgenital plate having a distinct subapical tubercle and the 

 pronotum having the median carina well developed and percurrent. 



77 This specimen has been fixed as single type by the present authors, Proc. 

 Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1912, p. 84, (1912). 



