SUBFAMILY TRYXALINAE 27 
prozona. The scapular area of the tegmina is inturned, forming a 
plane dorsally, and is in large part pale or yellowish. Hind femora 
with the outer face brown of varying tones, the lower sulcus coral-red ; 
the inner face with a longitudinal dark bar in both the superior and 
inferior fields, sometimes nearly the whole inner face more or less 
suffused with coral-red; hind tibiae rather pale yellowish with a dark 
annulation at the base, a somewhat fainter submedian band and apically 
another dark ring, indistinctly bounded above. 
During the season of 1911 we noted one specimen in a marsh near 
Fergus Falls, but in July, 1912, in low areas near Lake of the Woods, 
it was found in very considerable numbers and in almost every instar 
of its development. It was most numerous in the edge of poplar 
“islands” where the swamps were somewhat drier than in the open. 
The males especially are very active and not readily taken. Blatchley 
(The Orthoptera of Indiana, p. 250) says of this species, ‘“The males 
appear to far outnumber the females, and are much more wild and 
active, taking flight when a person is a dozen yards distant. They use 
the wings only in escaping, flying swiftly and noiselessly for 50 to 100 
feet and alighting on the stems of tall grasses and sedges among which 
they make their homes. The only way in which I have been able to 
effect their capture was by running after them and swooping them with 
the net as they rose or before they had time to arrange their legs for 
the upward impetus at the beginning of a new flight.” All of this 
applies exactly in the swamps of Minnesota and it was a matter of 
considerable hard work to take them in the tangle of wiry plants where 
they are found. The females are much heavier and more clumsy than 
the males and apparently rely largely on concealment for escape from 
danger as they were only taken by sweeping the sedges. The young 
are uniformly much darker than the adults, some being nearly black, 
and save for the peculiarly trim pronotum do not suggest the species. 
When not alarmed, the insects of this species are very similar in habits 
to the Locustidae and especially to Conocephalus, climbing slowly up 
and down the stems of tall sedges and swinging around to hide behind 
the stems at the slightest motion of the observer. The very elongate 
head and slender legs tend to emphasize the resemblance. 
Mecostethus gracilis Scudd. 
Mecostethus gracilis is an especially attractive insect, its trim, neat 
lines and pleasing coloration serving to distinguish it from its con- 
geners. It can be readily separated from the preceding by the char- 
acters given in the key, and especially by the absence of a pale streak 
along the scapular area of the tegmina. All of our captures of this 
