373 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



best place to bore her nest ; the wood must be firni enough to retain the 

 eggs well in place, and soft enough to absorb much moisture in the spring". 

 Upright pieces of timber are never chosen, but rather short sticks of 

 decaying, charred, or pithy wood, which cannot easily be broken or blown 

 against the rocks. Holes are frequently made three quarters of an inch 

 deep, and abandoned because the spot proves unsuitable. In a stick 

 about a foot and a half long and two or three inches wide, I counted 

 seventy-five borings, only three or four of which had been used as nests. 

 The number of imperfect to perfect holes must be as twenty-five to one, 

 or, perhaps, as fifty to one. When a good piece of wood is discovered, 

 the nests are crowded thickly together ; and a stick less than two inches 

 in diameter and five inches in length contained thirteen completed nests. 

 The holes are pierced at a slight angle to the perpendicular, away from 

 the insect; they are straight for about a quarter of an inch, then turn 

 abruptly and run horizontally along the grain for about an inch. The 

 eggs (from ten to fourteen in number) are almost always laid in the hori- 

 zontal portion of the nest ; they are cylindrical, tapering toward the ends, 

 but not at all pointed, and measure from fi\-e to five and a half milli- 

 metres in length, by one and one eighth in breadth ; the ends are equally 

 and regularly rounded. They vary in tint, some being almost colorless, 

 and others of a faint yellow. After the eggs have been carefully packed 

 away in the sawdust made by the abrasion of the sides of the hole, they 

 are covered above with a whitish froth, and the hole is sealed ujd just 

 below the surface of the wood with a black glutinous secretion, exces- 

 sively hard, smooth, and shiny, and the upper surface slightly concave. 

 In the spring the moisture doubtless softens these coverings so that the 

 young grasshoppers can easily escape. Many old nests may be found 

 uncovered and filled with the shells of the eggs, but none in which the 

 cover is still retained. 



15. Chrysocliraon viridis Thom. This grasshopper has been taken in 

 southern New Hampshire ; it has an extensive range, having been taken, 

 according to Thomas, as far west as southern Illinois and Nebraska. 



16. Stenobothrus cnrtipcunis Scudd. A very common species all over 

 the state and in the valleys of the White Mountains; it extends from 

 Maine to the Red river settlements in British America, and thence south- 

 ward to Pennsylvania, southern Illinois, Colorado, and Wyoming. It 



