STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 489 



GIGANTIC LOCUSTS. 



tips. As the insect presented me by Lieut. P. is remarkable for the length of 

 its antennae, which surpass those of any species which I find described by 

 authors, I here give a short account of it. 



The LoNG-HORXED CATY-DiD, Acaiithodis macrocerusy has antennae four 

 times the length of its body and measuring eight inches or more in length. It 

 is five inches in width and two in length, and is of a pale dull yellow color 

 The head is smooth and shining, with a projecting tubercle between th 

 antennae, which is hollowed on its upper side like the concavity of the bowl 

 of a spoon, and from this hollow a wavy impressed line extends back to the 

 base of the head. An elevated ridge margining the sockets of the antennae has 

 an impressed furrow on its outer side, in which on the under side are two black 

 dots. The antennae are tawny yellow, towards their tips black, their basal 

 joint thick, cylindric, pale greenish yellow, with an oblique brown stripe on 

 its under side. The thorax is rough from irregular elevated M-arts and ridges, 

 and is crossed by two transverse grooves, in which and in the other indenta- 

 tions are several black dots and irregular spots. The wing covers are pale 

 olive green, 2.40 long and O.GO broad, widest in the middle .and rounded at 

 their tips, with a clear glass}^ spot on the inner base of each. The wings are 

 smoky blackish with pale dull yellow veins and black veinlets and a very 

 narrow pale hind border, and four rows of cells upon their outer margin are 

 colorless and transparent but not clear and glassy. The four forward thighs 

 have three rows of small brown spots towards their tips, the row upon their 

 fore sides being longest, and on their under sides is a row of five small spines. 

 The shanks have two rows of similar spines, of which there are about ten in 

 the forward row and eight in the hind one. The hind thighs have a row of 

 ten spines on their under side, and their shanks have on their outer sides two 

 rows of spines, about fourteen in the inner and one less in the outer row, and 

 on their inner sides two rows, the outer with thirteen and the inner with ten 

 spines, all these spines being tipped with black. The individual is a male and 

 was preserved in diluted alcohol. 



The gigantic locusts of tropical America, of which as already stated there are 

 four distinct species, are so similar to each other in size and in several of their 

 most prominent and peculiar marks, that three of them were for a long time con- 

 founded together and were supposed to be but one or two species. Now that 

 we come to possess a number of specimens taken together at one locality and 

 see how alike these all are in their colors and other characters, it is evident that 

 these insects are not subject to any material variations, and that the species 

 into which they have been separated are well founded and are clearly distinct. 

 They all pertain to the genus to which authors generally have given the name 

 y/crydium, this genus differing from that to which the Migratory locust and 

 most of our common grasshoppers in this country pertain-, and to which the 

 name fjycusta most appropriately belongs, in having a spine or teat-like pro- 

 fess hanging downwards in the middle of the breast between the haunches of 

 the anterior pair of legs. These large species form a distinct group or section 

 of tliat genus, differing from all the other species in having the thorax rough, 

 with its anterior part elevated in the middle into a sharp-edged keel or crest 

 which is cut across by tliree deep transverse furrows, dividing this crest into 

 four lobes, as will be seen by a reference to the figures herewith presented, and 

 the anterior end of this crest jutting forward in a point which projects over 

 the base of the head. Their hind thighs also have two rows of white spots on 

 their outer face, those of the upper row being commonly round and the others 

 broad oval. In addition to this, three of these species further agree in having 



