Order ORTHOPTERA. 



Contains the grasshoppers, katydids, roaches and crickets, by far the 

 greater portion of which are feeders upon vegetation, and therefore ac- 

 tually or potentially injurious. Most of them feed openly upon the plant 

 tissue and are therefore within reach of the stomach poisons. 



In the species of this order the fore-wings are narrower and of firmer 

 texture than the secondaries and serve as covers merely, not as organs 

 of flight. The secondaries are folded more or less fanlike and are usually 

 hidden by the primaries when at rest; the shape is in general triangular 

 and the texture thin and membraneous with numerous longitudinal veins, 

 between which the tissue is reticulated. The metamorphosis is incom- 

 plete, and in some cases where the wings are wanting there is little dif- 

 ference in appearance between nymph and adult. 



The list as it stands here has been revised by Mr. J. A. G. Rehn, of 

 Philadelphia, who has collected extensively in New Jersey and is also a 

 recognized authority in the order. In the list of 1900, while the collec- 

 tions were very good, it was, nevertheless, deemed expedient to include 

 a number of species that seemed likely to occur though they had not been 

 actually recorded. Since that time the collections-made by Mr. Rehn and 

 other Philadelphia collectors, by Mr. Davis on Staten Island and in 

 eastern New Jersey generally, and by the office force in the State, have 

 been so extensive that it is deemed proper to exclude nearly all species 

 not actually taken. All the doubtful species have been verified and most 

 of the college material has been in the hands of specialists in the various 

 groups for study and determination. 



Family BLATTID^. 



Better known as "roaches." They are more or less flattened, soft in 

 texture, with long, slender antennse or feelers and long, stout, spiny legs 

 fitted for rapid running. They live in crevices, under bark or stones in 

 the woods, or in cracks between boards and other hiding places in houses. 

 Their favorite haunt in dwellings is about sinks or water pipes, whence 

 a small brown, fully-winged form received in New York the name "Croton 

 bug." A much larger species, in which the male has short wings and 

 the female none at all, is known as the "black beetle." Both of these 

 household pests are importations and have been spread by commerce 

 over most of the civilized world. 



In this family the eggs of the female are developed in an egg-case or 

 ootheca which the mother carries about with her attached to the end of 

 the abdomen until all the eggs are fully developed. She then drops it in 

 some sheltered place, and, in due time, the case splits along one slide and 

 gives exit to the young, which resemble the adults throughout their life 

 as nymphs. 



None of the species are agriculturally important. In houses the do- 

 mestic species are often extremely annoying and may be destroyed with 



(173) 



