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riety occurring in Florida, 11 species in Indiana, seven common to both 
states, and two species and one variety not known from either. 
FAMILY II.—MAnNntTIDAE.—This family comprises the “soothsayers” or 
“spraying mantids.” long, ungainly bodied forms having the fore legs 
raptorial or fitted for grasping other insects and conveying them to the 
mouth. They are the tigers and cannibals among Orthoptera, living mainly 
upon living insects and often upon one another. A male kept in captivity 
in New York ate in one day three large grasshoppers and a daddy long- 
legs and then tackled another mantis from which he was separated with 
difficulty. Nine species of mantids occur in the eastern United States, seven 
in Florida, two in Indiana, both of which are among the seven Floridian 
species, and two introduced species in the outside States. 
FAMILY Iv.—PHASMIDAE.—The members of this family are known as walk- 
ing-sticks. They simulate twigs or leaves in form of body, and often lie 
stretched out in such a manner as to deceive a close observer. All are veg- 
etable feeders and often do much damage to the foliage of trees and shrubs. 
They also are mainly tropical in distribution, only 11 species occurring in 
the Eastern States. But two of these are known from Indiana and five from 
Florida—one common to both states and five outside of either. 
FAMILY vV.—TErRIGIDAE.—This family comprises those minute grouse or 
pygmy locusts which have the pronotum extending back to or beyond the 
tip of abdomen and the fore and middle tarsi with only two joints. They 
live mainly along muddy or sandy flats or on dry open wooded hillsides and 
are the only Indiana locusts which pass the winter as adults. About 450 
nominal species are known from all parts of the earth. Only 16 species and 
eight varieties are recognized from the Eastern States. Of these eight 
species and five varieties occur in Indiana, nine species and three varieties 
in Florida, six species and one variety being common to both states, and five 
species and one variety not occurring in either. 
FAMILY VI.—ACRIDIDAE.— This family comprises the dominant group of our 
eastern Orthoptera. While commonly called “grasshoppers,” they are in 
reality the locusts mentioned in the bible—the ones of which the prophet 
Joel wrote: 
“The land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a deso- 
late wilderness ; yea, and nothing shall escape them.” 
Several of these locusts, at times, after one or two favorable seasons, 
increase in such numbers as to do enormous damage, the fully winged forms 
often congregating and migrating in vast droves, stopping wherever food 
appears abundant and stripping the country bare in a few hours. Of one 
of these migrations the poet Southey wrote: 
“Onward they came, a dark continuous cloud 
Of congregated myriads numberless, 
The rushing of whose wings was as the sound 
Of a broad river headlong in its course 
Plunged from a mountain summit, or the roar 
Of a wild ocean in the autumn storm, 
Shattering its billows on a shore of rocks.” 
