34 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 85 



regarded as significant, it would appear to put these objects in 

 jeopardy, as the proportion of the food of birds and other animals 

 made up of seeds is immensely greater than that composed of insect 

 eggs. Judged as a protective adaptation, therefore, this case would 

 seem to fit the old adage of " out of the frying-pan into the fire." 

 Two authorities who have paid special attention to the subject, how- 

 ever, conclude that the resemblance to seeds of these eggs has no 

 bionomic importance.' 



SALTATORIA (gRASSHOPPEKS, LOCUSTS, CRICKETS ) 



Owing to the facts that identifications in hundreds of cases were 

 not carried as far as they might have been, and that it is impracticable 

 to tabulate them by families, we put all the leaping orthoptera together, 

 rather than consider separately the two orders into which these forms 

 are usually grouped. 



For convenience part of the tabulation of identifications is here 

 repeated in revised form. 



Identifications of Saltatoria 



Percentape of 

 identifications 

 among those 

 Number of of all 



Group identifications Saltatoria 



Diphtheroptera 



(Grasshoppers, locusts) 5,695 30-3185 



Orthoptera (Sens, str.) 



(Green grasshoppers, katydids, crickets). 6,280 33-43-8 



Saltatoria 



(Further unidentified) 6,450 34-33/8 



Orthopteroidea 



(Further unidentified, no doubt Saltatoria) 359 1.9112 



All Saltatoria 18,784 



Protective adaptations. — -A. R. Wallace says : " " The whole order 

 of Orthoptera, grasshoppers, locusts, crickets, etc., are protected by 

 their colours harmonising with that of the vegetation or the soil on 

 which they live, and in no other group have we such striking examples 

 of special resemblance." 



With special reference to American insects, A. P. Morse makes the 

 following statement : ^ The coloration 



is, with few exceptions, highly sympathetic in character, harmonizing with or 

 resembling very closely, often to a marvelous degree, the background of the 



' Sharp, D., Willey Zool. Results, Cambridge, 1898, p. 75-94. 

 Severin, H. H. P., Ann. Ent. Soc. Amer., vol. 3, pp. 83-92, 1910. 

 ' Natural selection and Tropical nature, p. 46, 1891, 

 ° Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. 35, no. 6, p. 244, 1920. 



