292 REPORT OF STATE GEOLOGIST. 



This is the largest locust found in the State, and when freshly 

 moulted, one of the most handsome. It probably occurs in all the 

 counties but is much less common in the northern half, though I 

 have taken it in Fulton, Starke, Lake and Porter. Freshly moulted. 

 mature specimens, from eggs hatched in spring, have been taken in 

 Vigo County on June 18th, and on three different occasions numerous 

 specimens have been seen as late as November 22d. On this date, 

 in Marion County, when the government thermometer registered 17° 

 in the morning, several were flushed in the afternoon, though a cold 

 raw wind was blowing. In central and southern Indiana it is more 

 abundant in mid-autumn than in summer. There occasionally may 

 be two broods in one season, as I have found the nymphs common in 

 Vigo County on October 15th and 21st. 



This species is noted for its extended migrations and when a 

 second brood appears, they are doubtless from eggs laid by ma- 

 ture specimens which have entered the State in early spring. About 

 3 o'clock in the morning of April 11, 1893, the city of Terre Haute, 

 Indiana, was visited with a severe storm of rain and wind from the 

 southwest. A number of buildings were unroofed and many shade 

 and forest trees twisted and broken off. While on my way to the 

 High School building several persons informed me that they had, 

 that morning, seen specimens of "gigantic grasshoppers" on the 

 street, but were unable to capture them. About 10 o'clock one of my 

 former pupils brought me two living specimens of S. americana which 

 she had picked up from the sidewalk near her home. They had come 

 sailing in on the wings of the wind from some distant point in the 

 southwest, where they had passed the winter in the mature state or 

 as an advanced form of the young. Mature individuals which had 

 doubtless migrated have also been taken in Lake County on May 

 13th.* 



In the southern portion of Indiana, americana is always found in 

 dry, upland localities, such as the borders of roads, old meadows, 

 weed and stubble fields, prairies, and especially in old abandoned 

 fields which have grown up to oak and other shrubs. In the northern 

 portion it occurs in damper localities, being found in the tall grasses 

 and sedges along the borders of sloughs and marshes and in the 

 meadows bordering lakes and tamarack marshes. When flushed it 

 rises quickly and with a fluttering noise, makes a long, wavering, 

 jerky flight, and alights upon the bole or branch of tree or shrub, a 

 fence, or some other object some distance above the earth; seldom, 



'At Ormond, Florida, this locust wns abundant and mature in early March, 1890, and it 

 may pass the winter in the niature stage in some of the States much farther north, 



