250 INSECTS AFFECTING GRASS. 



through live successive moults, gaining their full 

 size, and with this their wings, in August, and com- 

 mence to lay eggs in September. The females deposit 

 these in the earth, boring cylindrical holes for the 

 purpose with the abdomen, and laying the eggs in a 

 symmetrical mass within the burrow thus formed. 

 With the egg mass is extruded a quantity of mucus, 

 which soon hardens and forms a sort of case or mat- 

 rix, in which the eggs are imbedded. The upper 

 part of the hole is also filled with this mucus. The 

 female is commonly busied from two to four or five 

 hours in the deposit of a single egg mass, and lays, 

 ordinarily, from two to four such masses in different 

 holes, upon different days, commencing the process 

 of oviposition, as a rule, about a month after she has 

 acquired her wings. After this process is completed 

 the exhausted females soon perish. They select b} r 

 preference, for oviposition, hard and dry ground, 

 roadsides and pastures being especially favorite lo- 

 calities. Meadows and pastures are commonly re- 

 sorted to by the mature females, especially the latter, 

 as the eggs seem not to be laid ordinarily on ground 

 covered by luxuriant vegetation. I have never 

 known them deposited in cultivated earth. 



" The food habits of these locusts are extremely 

 simple, and consist in eating nearly everything that 

 comes in their way. They are quiet at night, and 

 indeed, as they mature, they select elevated positions 

 as roosts, climbing to the tops of stems of grass in 

 meadows, to the tassels of the stalks in corn fields, 



