154 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



terms necessary for precision or brevity are often defined wlien first used — a feature that, while 

 it weakens tlie style of the author, it is hoped may strengthen the understanding of many of 

 the readers.] 



The popular or vernacular names applied to species and groups of 

 insects are so erroneous or confusing that in order .to treat this sub- 

 ject with clearness we must first eradicate false notions, then use the 

 correct, only distinctive, and really beautiful scientific terms. The 

 "seventeen-year locust," the "singing locust," etc., is really no locust 

 at all, but an insect belonging to a widely different order — the hem- 

 'qjfera, or half-wings — and is the cicada, a big-headed, noisy harvest 

 fl}'', with its mouth parts prolonged into a beak, a corneus and pointed 

 tube, with which it pierces and sucks the juices of the tender parts 

 of plants. Neither is the locust proper to be confounded with katy- 

 dids, crickets, and grasshoppers. " Katy-dids may be known by their 

 large wings and long antennse (feelers), longer than their bodies, their 

 habit of living in bushes and high grass, and their loud, interrupted, 

 shrilling notes at early twilight. 



Crickets are distinguished by oblong, depressed bodies, terminated 

 by two stiff anal stylets (bristles), the female having between them a 

 corneous scabbard shaped ovipositor, often as long as her body. The 

 male " chirrups " to attract his mate. There are three kinds com- 

 monly met with — the nrole cricket, with stout fore legs adapted to 

 digging; the field cricket, smaller and of a black color, and the little 

 greenish, large- winged climbing cricket. The word "grasshopper" 

 is often applied to this cricket, and its immediate relatives of the 

 gryllus family. True, locusts or grasshoppers belong to the order of 

 ortho'ptera., or the straight winged family. They have a large head, 

 short and stout attennse, mouth furnished with mandibles or strong, 

 sidewise moving jaws, and long, strong hind legs, the female having 

 no long ovipositor, but instead her abdomen terminates with rhab- 

 dites — four short, corneous curved pointed organs, arranged in two 

 pairs, one pair moving outward and upward, the other outward and 

 downward when drilling holes in the earth for her eggs. The abdo- 

 men of the male rounds upward at the end, like the prow of a boat, 

 and is provided with a pair of horizontally arranged pincers, (circi). 

 for seizing the female. This description includes a large group or 

 sub-order {acridinse), comprising hundreds of genera and thousands 

 of species. 



There are three families of this group, but two of which are repre- 

 sented in the United States. 



1. Acrididse have ihe 'prosternum. or front breast drawn up, i. e., it is 

 not in the same plane with the rest of the breast, or sternum; the 

 pronohnn or front back is shield-form and shorter than the abdomen; 

 the upper parchment-like wings (elytra) equal in length with the 

 lower, broader, thinner, plaited, true wings; the three-jointed foot 

 (tarsa) with pads between the claws. 



2. TiUiginas have the lyrosternum in the same plane as the rest, and 

 advanced upon the mouth like a mufiler; pronotum extending back 

 nearly or quite to the tip of the abdomen; e^j/^ra shorter than true 

 wings; farsa without pads. 



This family is but sparsely represented in Calif ornia, and are harm- 

 less little creatures. The first family Acridinx divides into two tribes : 



A — Head conical or pyramidal; face Y&ry oblique or sloped under 

 towards the breast; antennae usually postulate, that is, enlarged at 



