ENTOMOLOGY IN OUTLINE — ORTHOPTER A. 35 



places are close to water in the tules and the breeding grounds of the 

 grasshoppers are near the foothills, perhaps miles away, their services 

 are not so valuable in proportion to their numbers as those of the 

 meadowlark, whose home may be in the midst of the young grasshop- 

 pers or adjacent thereto. Later in the season, the blackbirds become 

 fearfully destructive of grasshoppers. Woodpeckers also for a time 

 cease their arboreal habits to prey upon the grasshoppers on the 

 ground. While the sparrowhawks, owls, sparrows, groundlarks, and, 

 in fact, all kinds of land birds, except the dove, give their welcome aid 

 in destroying the pests. It is said that skunks and gophers eat them, 

 as do also toads, frogs, and snakes. 



Grasshoppers, like all insects that gather in large swarms, are subject 

 to contagious diseases, which spread rapidly and carry them off in large 

 numbers, often almost exterminating them. A fungous disease is one 

 of the most fatal to grasshoppers in some countries. 



But when grasshoppers become numerous and destructive, it is not 

 wise for farmers or horticulturists to await the action of natural causes, 

 for proximity to cultivated areas does not give the necessary time for 

 their action before great damage has been done. The farmer must, 

 therefore, be prepared to defend his crop. The best method to combat 

 the pest is to plow the land known to contain eggs, before the grasshop- 

 pers are hatched. When the young hoppers have appeared, they may 

 be plowed under and destroyed. Plowing should commence at the 

 outer boundary of the grasshopper section, and a number of plows 

 should be used at the same time, the plows following each other as 

 closely as possible. The grasshoppers are in this manner forced to the 

 center, where a black mass of struggling insects are crowded together. 

 But few of them will escape, for as one plow makes a furrow, which is 

 rapidly filled with grasshoppers, the following plow covers them under 

 and they are buried alive, few of them escaping. 



The genus Melanoplus, to which both of the above described locusts 

 belong, is a very extensive one, including one hundred and twenty 

 species in the United States, and is the largest of all the Acridid genera. 



The next most destructive member of the subfamily Acridinse is the 

 (Edaleonotus enigma, which species is sometimes very numerous and 

 destructive. 



Family Loeustidse. Dismissing the family Acrididse, which includes 

 the numerous and destructive locust genera, we come to the next 

 family, the Loeustidse, to which, by the way, the locusts do not 

 belong. This includes the katydids, meadow grasshoppers, wingless 

 crickets, etc. Their common and peculiar characteristics are their very 

 long antennae, which, in many species, greatly exceed the length of the 

 body, and the prominent wings in many of those which have these 



