MORSE: ORTHOPTERA OF NEW ENGLAND. 529 
Crested Pygmy Locust. 
Nomotettix cristatus (Scudder). 
Plate 24, fig. 1-5. 
Batrachidea cristata Scudder, Boston Journ. Nat. Hist., vol. 7, p. 478 (1862). 
—Smith, Proc. Portland Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. 1, p. 151 (1868); Rept. Ct. 
Bd. Agric. for 1872, p. 383 (1873).— Fernald, Orth. N. E., p. 48 (1888). 
Batrachidea carinata Scudder, Boston Journ. Nat. Hist., vol. 7, p. 479 
(1862).— Fernald, Orth. N. E., p. 49 (1888). 
Nomotettix cristatus Morse, Psyche, vol. 7, p. 150 (1894). — Walden, Bull. 
Geol. Nat. Hist. Surv. Ct., no. 16, p. 66 (1911). 
Antennae 12- or 13-jomted. Occiput with a pair of small 
tubercles. Vertex strongly projecting, rounded; mid-carina 
verj^ prominent; facial costa sharply excised opposite eyes in 
side view. Pronotum sloping roof -wise (tectiform); its median 
carina cristate, arched, highest anteriorly, often a little flattened 
opposite shoulders, the front margin of the disk projecting 
strongly over the head, the sides of the projection concave. 
Color: uniform light or dark gray or brown, the disk often 
with two or four triangular or more or less crescentic dusky to 
velvety black spots which are sometimes bordered externally by 
white, the hind femora often mottled or banded. The variations 
of pattern are almost endless. 
Measurements. 
Total 
Pronotum 
Hind femora 
Male 
7.7-11.5 
7.1-10.7 
4.4-4.8 
Female 
8.6-12.5 
8 -11.3 
4.7-5.5 mm. 
This curious little Locust is our smallest Acridian and the com- 
monest and most widely distributed Pygmy Locust inhabiting 
New England. With its peculiarly shaped pronotum it is quite 
likely to be mistaken by the novice for a tree-hopper and so 
passed by as a member of an entirely different order of insects. 
It is found everywhere on light soils, but especially in dry pas- 
tures and other wild land sparsely covered with a scanty growth 
of curling tufts of Danthonia grass, fragments of Cladonia 
lichens, and the tough gray leaves of "pussy-toes" and "ever- 
lasting" (Antennaria sp.). It is perhaps somewhat more plenti- 
ful in the damper portions of such localities, but differs much 
from our other species of the subfamily in this particular, the 
