18 
throughout this and adjoining counties, it is my opinion that the present 
species is more to be feared in the future than they, on account of its 
arboreal nature and the difficulty of getting at it in order to destroy it. 
To kill these locusts either while feeding among the foliage or ‘ roost- 
ing” upon the topmost boughs of the tal] trees would be next to impos- 
sible. On the other hand, the other species are easily to be gotten at 
and destroyed, as just shown. 
The habits of this locust, as nearly as I was able to learn through 
inquiry from others, and by personal observation, are briefly as fol- 
lows: 
The egg-pods are deposited in the ground about the bases of trees or 
indifferently scattered about the surface among the decaying leaves, 
&e., like those of all other ground-laying species. The young commence 
hatching about the middle of March and continue to appear until into 
April. After molting the first time and becoming a little hardened 
they immediately climb up the trunks of the trees and bushes of all 
kinds and commence feeding upon the new and tender foliage. They 
molt at least five or six times, if we may take the variation in size and 
difference in the development of the rudiments of wings as a criterion. 
The imago or mature stage is reached by the last of May or during the 
first part of June. 
The species is very active and shy in all its stages of growth after 
leaving the egg. The larva and pupa run up the trunks and along the 
limbs of trees with considerable speed, and in this respect differ con- 
siderably from all other species of locusts with which I am acquainted. 
I am informed that the mature insects are also equaliy wild and fly like 
birds. They feed both by day and night; and I am told by those who 
have passed through the woods after night when all else was quiet, 
that the noise produced by the grinding of their jaws was not unlike 
the greedy feeding of swine. 
Aside from its arboreal nature there is but a single instance men- 
tioned of its preference to growing crops. This was a small field of 
either cotton or corn, or perhaps both. If the nature of the crop was 
told me at the time I have forgotten. At any rate the crop of one or 
the other of these two staples grew in a small clearing in the very midst 
of the most thickly visited area. The mature insects alone were the 
offenders in this instance. During the day-time they would leave the 
trees in swarms and alight upon the growing crop and feed until even 
ing, when they would return to the trees. If, during the day, they were 
disturbed, they immediately took wing and left for the tops of the sur- 
rounding trees to return shortly afterward. 
The exact classification of this locust has not yet been fully ascer- 
tained, since no mature specimens were to be obtained, or, to my knowl- 
edge, are contained in any of our American collections. The larve and 
pup collected, however, would indicate a relationship to both the gen- 
era Melanoplus and Acridium. It appears to be congeneric with an 
