ORXnOPTERA. 143 



pale green, with the head whitish, or only faintly tinted ^^'ith 

 green, and the legs and abdomen are pale brownish green. A 

 little tooth projects downwards from the under side of the 

 conical part of the head, which extends between the antennae, 

 and immediately before this little tooth is a black line bent 

 backwards on each side like the letter U. The liindmost 

 thighs have five or six exceedingly minute spines on the inner 

 ridge of the under side. The shrilling organ of the male, on 

 the left wing-cover, is green and opake, but that on the right 

 has a space in the middle that is transparent like glass. The 

 piercer of the female is above an inch long, very slightly bent 

 near the body, and perfectly straight from thence to the tip, 

 which ends in a point. The color of this grasshopper is very 

 apt to change, after death, to a dirty brown. It comes very 

 near to the dissimilis described by M. Serville, but appears to 

 be a different species. 



3. Locusts. {Locustadce.) 



The various insects included under the name of locusts 

 nearly all agree in having their wing-covers rather long and 

 narrow, and placed obliquely along the sides of the body, 

 meeting, and even overlapping for a short distance, at their 

 upper edges, which together form a ridge on the back like a 

 sloping roof. Their antennae are much shorter than those of 

 most grasshoppers, and do not taper towards the end, but are 

 nearly of equal thickness at both extremities. Their feet have 

 really only three joints; but as the under side of the first joint 

 is marked by one or two cross lines, the feet, when seen only 

 from below, seem to be four or five jointed. The females have 

 not a long projecting piercer like the crickets and grasshoppers, 

 but the extremity of their body is provided with four short, 

 wedge-like pieces, placed in pairs above and below, and open- 

 ing and shutting opposite to each other, thus forming an 

 instrument like a pair of nippers, only with four short blades 

 instead of two. When one of these insects is about to lay 

 her eggs, she drives these little wedges into the earth ; these, 

 being then opened and withdrawn, enlarge the orifice ; upon 



