38 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 85 



abundance of individuals rather than through abundance of species. 

 Ahiiost everywhere in the United States that herbage is plentiful, 

 grasshoppers in the late summer rattle away from the approaching 

 pedestrian in such numbers as to form a veritable rolling barrage of 

 insect projectiles. No insects are more conspicuous in action, yet on 

 close examination the observer finds that the individual hopper is dull 

 and obscure in color. The point is worthy of attention because it proves 

 that the formula that abundant and conspicuous insects tend to be 

 warningly colored and inedible has numerous exceptions. None of 

 our grasshoppers of the northeastern United States are warningly 

 colored, unless the Oedipodinae with brightly and contrastingly colored 

 hind-wings, and in many instances a loudly rattling flight, may be so 

 considered. Whatever their status in adaptation theories such genera 

 as Arphia, Dissostcira, and Hippiscus seem to supply their full quota 

 to the food of birds and other predatory enemies. On the other hand 

 some of the " sympathetically " colored species mentioned in the 

 remarks on adaptations quoted from Morse are the very bread of 

 avian diet. Grasshoppers of the genus Melanoplus for instance were 

 identified 543 times among the records here considered, and were 

 found in the stomachs of more than 85 species of birds. These and 

 other Acridids are taken not only frequently but often in quantity, for 

 instance, the remains of no fewer than 123 specimens were found at 

 one time in the stomach of a common crow and 340 in that of a 

 Franklin's gull. Judging from the records, the green grasshoppers or 

 Locustidae and the crickets also bear their appropriate burden of 

 l^redatory attack. 



The imposing total of 17,641 identifications of Saltatoria, more than 

 a tenth of all insect determinations, shows what an important staple 

 for the birds these creatures are, and how poorly their prevailing 

 elaborately cryptic coloration succeeds in foiling their enemies. They 

 are preyed upon voraciously not only by birds but by a host of other 

 animals, but the effect of the attacks of predators, parasites, and 

 diseases together in no way suggests that the Saltatoria are a dis- 

 appearing race. Despite persecution, these insects abound and the 

 reasons are high fecundity and the great surplus of food available to 

 them ; these are substantial realities and outweigh immeasurably those 

 airy intangibilities classed as protective adaptations. 



PALEOPTERA (ROACHES ) 



Protective adaptations. — The comparatively few native species of 

 roaches in the United States are secretive and nocturnal in habit but 

 appear to have no other special protective adaptations. The introduced 



