Cockroaches, Locusts, Grasshoppers, and Crickets 133 



Antenn* with many segments, and longer than the fore femora. 



Mesothorax twice as long as prothorax Anisomorpha. 



Mesothorax no longer than prothorax Tinema. 



Tibiae without groove at tip, as above described. 



Hind femora with one or more distinct spines on the median line of the under side 



near the tip Diapheromera. 



Hind femora without such spines. 



Head, especially in female, with a pair of tubercles or ridges on the front between 



the eyes Sermyle. 



Head without such tubercle or ridges Bacunculus. 



One day in early .summer of the Centennial Year (1876) the people all 

 over Kansas might have been seen staring hard with shaded eyes and serious 

 faces up towards the sun. By persistent looking one could see high in the 

 air a thin silvery white shifting cloud or haze of which old residents sadly 

 said, "It's them again, all right." Now this meant, if it were true, that, 

 far from being all right, it was about as wrong as it could be for Kansas. 

 "Them" meant the hateful Rocky Mountain locusts, and the locusts meant 

 devastation and ruin for Kansas crops and farmers. In 1866 and again 

 in 1874 and 1875 the locusts had come; first a thin silvery cloud high over- 

 head — sunlight glancing from millions of thin membranous fluttering 

 wings — and then a swarming, crawling, leaping, and ever and always 

 busily eating horde of locusts over all the green things of the land. And 

 the old residents spoke the truth in that summer of 1876. It was "them," 

 uncounted hosts of them, and only such patriotic farmers as had laid by 

 money for a rainy day or a grasshopper year could visit the Centennial 

 E.^position. 



Not all locusts are migratory or appear in such countless swarms as 

 this invader from the high plateau of the northern Rocky Mountains. In 

 South America another locust species, larger than ours, has similar habits; 

 having its permanent breeding-grounds on the great plateau at the eastern 

 foot of the Chilean .\ndes and descending almost even,' year in swarms on 

 the great wheat-fields of Argentina. And in Algeria and Asia Minor occurs 

 the migratory locust of the Scriptures, a still other and larger species. But 

 of the 500 (app.) locust species, members of the family Acridiidae, which 

 are known in the United States but three or four can be fairly called 

 migratory, and of these the Rocky Mountain locust, Melanoplus spretus, is 

 the most conspicuous. The lesser migratory locust, Melanoplus atlanis, 

 does much injury in New England and other eastern states, while the 

 pellucid locust, Camnula pelliicida, is a migratory species that often does 

 much harm in California and other western states. Sometimes large 

 bodies of immature wingless individuals of the large species Dissostcira 

 lorij^ipcnnis, abundant on the plains of eastern Colorado and western Kansas 



