23G 



riety occurring in Florida, 11 species in Indiana, seven common to both 

 states, and two species and one variety not known from either. 



FAMILY III. — Mantidae. — Tliis family comprises the "soothsayers" or 

 "spraying mantids." long, ungainly bodied forms having the fore legs 

 raptorial or fitted for grasping other insects and conveying them to the 

 month. They are the tigers and cannibals among Orthoptera, living mainly 

 upon living insects and often upon one another. A male kept in captivity 

 in New York ate in one day three large grasshoppers and a daddy long- 

 legs and then tackled another mantis from which he was separated /with 

 difficulty. Nine species of mantids occur in the eastern United States, seven 

 in Florida, two in Indiana, both of which are among the seven Floridian 

 species, and two introduced species in the outside States. 



FAMILY IV. — Phasjiidae. — The members of this family are known as walk- 

 ing-sticks. They simulate twigs or leaves in form of body, and often lie 

 stretched out in such a manner as to deceive a close observer. All are veg-. 

 etable feeders and often do much damage to the foliage of trees and shrubs. 

 They also are mainly tropical in distribution, only 11 species occurring in 

 the Eastern States. But two of these are known from Indiana and five from 

 Florida — one common to both states and five outside of either. 



FAMILY v.— Tetrigiuae. — This family comprises those minute grouse or 

 pygmy locusts which have the pronotum extending back to or beyond the 

 tip of abdomen and the fore and middle tarsi with only two joints. They 

 live mainly along muddy or sandy flats or on dry open wooded hillsides and 

 are the only Indiana locusts which pass the winter as adults. About 450 

 nominal species are known from all parts of the earth. Only 16 species and 

 eight varieties are recognized from the Eastern States. Of these eight 

 species and five varieties occur in Indiana, nine species and three varieties 

 In Florida, six species and one variety being common to both states, and five 

 species and one variety not occurring in either. 



FAMILY VI. — AcKiDiDAE. — Thls family ccanprl^es the dominant group of our 

 eastern Orthoptera. While commonly called "grasshoppers," they are In 

 reality the locusts mentioned in the bible — the ones of which the prophet 

 Joel wrote : 



"The land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a deso- 

 late wilderness ; yea, and nothing shall escape them."' 



Several of these locusts, at times, after one or two favorable seasons. 

 Increase In such numbers as to do enormous damage, the fully winged forms 

 often congregating and migrating in vast droves, stopping wherever food 

 appears abundant and stripping the country bare In a few hours. Of one 

 of these migrations the poet Southey wrote : 



"Onward they came, a dark continuous cloud 

 Of congregated myriads numberless. 

 The rushing of whose wings was as the sound 

 Of a broad river headlong In its course 

 I'huiged from a mountain summit, or the roar 

 Of a wild ocean in the autumn storm, 

 Shattering its billows on a shore of rocks." 



