12 
ggs.—Kggs are deposited in masses (vothecae), see fig. 2, Just below 
the surface of the ground. They are arranged irregularly in the egg 
sac, are small, light colored, and contrast strongly with the large, con- 
spicuously red eggs of Schistocerca obscura, so often found associated 
with those of the differential. The period of egg-laying depends 
upon the time the females reach maturity; even those hatching at the 
same time may vary in maturing as much as twelve days or two weeks. 
It was found that eggs may be deposited from July 20 to October 1, 
and by stragglers even later. The bulk of oviposition, however, takes 
place between August 10 and September 15. Single females separated 
to determine the number of egg-pods deposited indicate in most cases 
that but a single batch of eggs is laid. The number of eggs in each sac 
‘anged from 103 to 132. Mating was observed to generally take place 
twice at an interval of from ten to twelve days; the female oviposit- 
ing from three to five days after the second copulation. 
kgg-laying areas.— Places selected for depositing eggs are more or 
less local, and a knowledge of them is interesting and important, as they 
offer most excellent means of effecting remedies. 
The account, given above, of the basin of 
300 acres which had become hard after flood- 
ing, and the spread of the grasshoppers from 
this region into cultivated fields suggests that 
any such territory is perhaps the most favor- 
able egg-laying area; other places were found 
equally attractive during 1899. Ditch and bay- 
ou banks, plantation roads, the railroad right 
of way, upon levees, Indian mounds (common 
9 
Phe 
Fic. 2.—Ootheca or egg case of In the delta), around stumps and logs, and even 
Melanoplus differentialis (orig in the logs, at the end of corn and cotton rows 
nal). . 
(the turn rows), in lanes, and Bermuda pastures 
were all found plugged with egg-pods. Just at the edges of sloughs 
and on the turn rows are thought by the managers to be the most 
common egg-laying places, but the opportunity for witnessing the 
females ovipositing eggs in these regions is much better than in the 
less-frequented waste and sodded areas, and thus we may account for 
the prevalence of this belief. Some females were seen depositing eggs 
far out in cultivated fields, but such cases were not common, and even 
then the harder spots near the basis of a cotton plant were selected. — It 
was not unusual to find the egg-pods of three or even four species of 
grasshoppers side by side. In fact, it was due to the conspicuous col- 
onizing of the eggs of Schistocerca obscura that many of the egg-laying 
areas of differentialis were discovered. 
Young and adults.—Eggs remaining in the soil over winter begin 
hatching as early as April 15, but the majority of young emerge 
between May 1 and May 20. Eggs exposed upon the surface of the 
