136 B. p. UVAROV. 



N. Ikonniko\-, V. Boldyrev, L. Moritz, H. C. Pratt (Government Entomologist, 

 Federated Malay States), and many others. Thanks to this generous help, I was 

 able to come to certain conclusions on the question of migratoria-danica already 

 in 1915, but the War and other circumstances prevented me from publishing a paper 

 on it. When I arrived in London in 1920 and studied the exotic representatives 

 of the genus Locusta, I felt the necessity of revising my previous work and extending 

 its limits so as to include in it all known species and forms of the genus. This plan 

 proved to be a very productive one, since a far more definite idea as to the inter- 

 relations of different " species " has been thus reached. A study of the South 

 African L. pardalina, Walk., has been also accomplished in the British Museum, but 

 I could not do much with museum material only, and the most effective help in this 

 respect has been rendered me by the Division of Entomology, Pretoria, and especially 

 by Mr. J. C. Faure, who has sent to the Imperial Bureau of Entomology at my 

 request extensive series of specimens, together with most valuable information. 



With regard to the biological observations here recorded, it is only thanks to the 

 help rendered me by my assistants, G.Vinokurov, Th. Gliniuk, the late G. Pirkovsky, 

 and others, that I could collect the necessary facts. My most sincere thanks are 

 due also to all the above-mentioned persons and the heads of institutions who have 

 lent me material and supplied information. 



II. Ox THE Generic Name Locusta, L. 



The Linnean genus, Gryllus Locusta, includes 20 different species of locusts and 

 grasshoppers, belonging to about as many modern genera. There is no wonder, 

 therefore, that much controversy arose around the question as to the species to which 

 the Linnean name Locusta must be restricted now. This question becomes still 

 more complicated owing to the fact that Geoffrey (Hist. Ins. i, p. 396, 1762) appHed 

 the name Locusta quite erroneously to the long-homed katydids (now called 

 Tettigoniidae, or, wrongly, Phasgonuridae), and has been followed in this mistake 

 by all continental European authors, till quite recently. There is, however, no 

 doubt, that Linne, who adopted the name Locusta from the old Roman writers who 

 applied it to swarming locusts, intended it to include those insects and the short- 

 horned grasshoppers generally. This view was accepted long ago by British authors, 

 and W. E. Leach (Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, ix, pt. 1, p. 120, 18i5), though using 

 Locusta, Geoffr., for katydids, used at the same time Gryllus Locusta, L., \or migrator ia. 

 L., the latter being the only species described by him under this genus, and, therefore, 

 he actually has fixed it as genotype of Locusta, L. A few 3/ears later on, Samouelle 

 (Entomologist's Useful Compendium, p. 218, 1819) followed Leach in restricting 

 the genus Locusta to migratoria, but he calls it wrongly Locusta, Leach, not Linne. 

 Stephens in 1829 (Cat. Brit. Ins., i, p. 301, No. 2, sp. 3315) merely repeats Samouelle's 

 interpretation of the genus. Even if we do not accept the genotype of Locusta, L. 

 cited in 1815 by Leach, we shall find a most formal fixation of it in the British Ento- 

 mology of Curtis (iii, pi. 608, August 1836), who in describing Locusta christii, Curtis 

 {=rr.danica, L.) said positively : " T^-pe of the genus, Gryllus migratorms, L." All 

 subsequent works on the sanie subject are, thus, of no importance, and the generic 

 name Pachytylus, Fieber, proposed in 1853 (Lotos, iii, p. 121) for migratoria and 

 danica is a pure synonym of Locusta, L. The proposal of Rehn (Canadian Ento- 

 mologist, xxxiii, 1901) to restrict the genus Locusta, L., to apricarius, virididiis and 

 biguttulus. which are included now in the genera Stauroderus and Omocestus, as well 

 as that of H. Krauss (Zool. Anz.. xxv, 1902, p. 539), who regarded tatarica, L., as 

 the genotype of Locusta, cannot be accepted in view of Curtis' work, which was 

 overlooked bv both these authors. 



