ORTHOPTERA. 125 



male, and there is a great diversity of coloring in this sex ; the 

 body being sometimes almost white, or pale greenish yellow, or 

 dusky, and blackish beneath. There are three dusky stripes on 

 the head and thorax, and the legs, antennae, and piercer are more 

 or less dusky or blackish. The wing-covers and wings are 

 yellowish white, sometimes with a tinge of green, and the wings 

 are rather longer than the covers. 



In Europe there are found, in ant-hills, little jumping insects 

 about three twentieths of an inch in length, of a brownish color, 

 with an egg-shaped body, entirely destitute of wings and wing- 

 covers. The head is very small, and nearly concealed under the 

 forepart of the body ; the hindmost thighs are remarkably thick ; 

 and the female has a very short piercer, not exceeding the terminal 

 appendages in length. These insects belong to the genus Myr- 

 mecophila. Several years ago I observed that cucumber vines 

 were much infested by some minute jumping insects, rather less 

 than one tenth of an inch long, of a broad oval shape, and black 

 color, without wing-covers or wings, but furnished with short 

 thick hinder thighs. They injured the vines very much by eating 

 holes into or puncturing the leaves, and were expelled by dusting 

 the plants with flour of sulphur. These cucumber-skippers were 

 so soft and tender, and withal so agile, that it was difficult to catch 

 without crushing them. Consequently I was unable to examine 

 them thoroughly, and failed to preserve specimens of them. It 

 is possible that they may come near to the genus JWyrmecophila, 

 which was unknown to me at the time ; and since then these mi- 

 nute insects have escaped my observation. They were very 

 different from the little flea-beetles (Haltica cucumeris or pu- 

 bescens), also found on cucumber-vines, which have already been 

 noticed among the Coleopterous insects.* 



2. Grasshoppers. (Gryllidce.) 



Grasshoppers, properly so called, as before stated, are those 

 jumping orthopterous insects which have four joints to all their 

 feet, long bristle-formed antennae, and in which the females are 

 provided with a piercer, flattened at the sides, and somewhat re- 



* See p. 103. 



