Fig. 1.— Differential grasshopper {Melanoplus differentialis). 

 Natural size (after Riley). 



Fig. 2. — Two-striped grasshopper {Melanoplus bivitta- 

 tus) Natural size (after Riley). 



not seem to differ otherwise from the normal. The head and thorax 



are olive-brown, and the front wings are of very much the same 



color, without other 



markings but with a 



brownish shade at the 



base; the hind wrings 



are tinged with green ; 



the hind thighs are 



bright yellow, especially 



below, with four black 



marks; the hind shanks are yellow, with black spines and a ring of 



the same color near the base. 



The two-striped grasshopper (fig, 2) varies in colon from a dull 



green to a dull brown, with a 

 distinct yellow stripe extend- 

 ing on each side from the upper 

 part of the eye to the end of the 

 wing. The male is about 1| 

 inches long and the female 

 about one-fourth of an inch 

 longer. This grasshopper may 

 be so easily recognized from 



the accompanying figure that further description is unnecessary. 



The young are very much like those of the Rocky Mountain grass- 

 hopper or locust {Melanoplus spretus Thos.), shown in figure 3, 



DISTRIBUTION OF THE TAVO SPECIES. 



Although both these grasshoppers seem 

 to be generally distributed over the country, 

 the differential grasshopper rarely becomes 

 destructively abundant east of the Missis- 

 sippi Eiver. It is very decidedly so, and 

 with great frequency, however, to the west 



of the Mississippi, while, though extending Fig. 3.— Rocky Mountain grass- 



from Maine to California, the two-striped ^°T\ °' '°'"'' \''''T.V2l 



■ , ^ spretus): a, a, newly hatched 



grasshopper is sometimes disastrously abun- larvae; b, full-grown larva; c, pu- 



dant, locally at least, as far east as Ohio, p"" Natural size (after miey). 

 In the red-clover-growing sections of the country the two-striped 

 species is probably very much the more destructive of the two, 

 though even as far east as Indiana the differential grasshopper does 

 considerable injury to fruit trees by gnawing the bark from the twigs. 



LIFE HISTORIES AND HABITS. 



The eggs are deposited in the ground in masses, inclosed in more or 

 less kidney-shaped pods, in late summer and fall, after the manner 



[Cir. 84] 



