PSYCHE. 



THE ORTHOPTERAN GENUS HIPPISCUS. 



BY SAMUEL H. SCUDDER, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 



Hippiscus was established by Saussure 

 in 1 86 1 as a subgenus of Oedipoda on 

 a large Mexican grasshopper to which 

 he gave the name of ocelote. Only a 

 brief diagnosis of the group was given, 

 and no attention was paid to it until 

 1S73, when Stal, who regarded it as a 

 genus, gave much greater precision to 

 its definition through the tables in his 

 Recensio Orthopterorum and placed 

 Serville's well known Oedipoda dis- 

 coidea in the group. Subsequently, 

 in 1S74, I referred here Oe. rugosa 

 Scudd. and, in 1S76, Oe. neglecta 

 Thorn., Oe. haldemanii Scudd. and 

 Oe. corallipes Hald. Finally, in 

 18S4, Saussure in his Prodromus Oedi- 

 podiorum described a number of new 

 forms and separated them into two 

 series, which he termed Hippiscus 

 and Xanthippus, regarding each as a 

 genus, and further divided the former 

 into two subgenera, — Hippiscus proper 

 and Pardalophora. 



Although I have been unable to ex- 

 amine two of the species described by 

 Saussure, so large a number of new forms 

 have been found in our country, espec- 

 ially in the region west of the Mississippi, 

 and so great a confusion exists regarding 

 them in our collections and in the writ- 

 ings of our entomologists, that I have 



ventured to subject them all to a critical 

 study, the result of which is offered in 

 the following pages. As will be seen, 

 I am inclined to regard Saussure's two 

 genera as but subdivisions of one generic 

 group, and to discard his subgenus 

 Pardalophora altogether; at the same 

 time I have applied a third subgeneric 

 name, Sticthippus, to forms which are 

 closely related to Hippiscus and Leprus. 

 My Leprus ingens which Saussure, 

 without seeing, put in Xanthippus with 

 a query, I am now inclined to regard as 

 • the type of an undescribed genus allied 

 to Leprus but distinct and remarkable 

 for the bulky form of the female. 



Though it seems most reasonable to 

 consider these subdivisions as of less 

 than generic rank, there would seem to 

 be ground for regarding them as of some 

 importance, for it will be noted by the 

 observant that the subgenus Hippiscus 

 is an eastern type, rarely occurring be- 

 yond the Sierra Nevadas*, and that 

 Sticthippus is confined to the Pacific 

 slope, while Xanthippus occurs with 

 Sticthippus on the Pacific Coast, and 



♦Exception may possibly be made to this, for Walker 

 records H. tuberculatus from the West Coast; but apart 

 from the fact that this species forms a group by itself 

 within Hippiscus and has an anomalous distribution 

 even to within the Arctic Circle, I believe this is either 

 an error of determination or of location. 



