281 
NOTES ON ORTHOPTERA AND ORTHOPTERAN HABITATS IN 
THE VICINITY OF LAFAYETTE, INDIANA. 
HENky Fox. 
(Assistant, Cereal and Forage Insect Investigations, 
U. S. Bureau of Entomology.) 
Between September 3, 1912, and November 30 of the following year 1 
was stationed in pursuance of official duties at Lafayette, Tippecanoe 
County, Indiana. At intervals during my stay there I made a series of 
observatious on the Orthoptera and Orthopteran habitats of the surround- 
ing country which, incomplete as they are, nevertheless constitute a distinct 
positive contribution toward an accurate knowledge of the faunal fea- 
tures of the region. My earlier studies on the distribution of Orthoptera 
in Pennsylvania and New Jersey’ had impressed me with the importance 
of detailed local lists of species in a scientific study of distribution. The 
usual distribution as given in most works of reference is entirely too gen- 
eral for accurate study, no regard being paid to local peculiarities of 
distribution or to the relative abundance of the species in different parts of 
its range. Take, for example, such a form as Psinidia fenestralis. Its 
range, as usually given, extends from Massachusetts to Florida, Texas, 
northern Indiana and southern Minnesota. Such a statement would incline 
one to think that the entire region south of say a line drawn from Cape 
Cod to the southern extremities of the Great Lakes and thence to the 
southern border of Minnesota would be characterized by the presence of 
this species. As a matter of fact such is very far from being the case. 
In the Hast, for instance, Psinidia fenestralis is regularly found only 
in the low sandy belt fringing the coast, while in the interior it is of 
extremely local occurrence, being met with only on widely scattered, 
isolated deposits of loose sand. All positive data on this species indicates 
that its distribution is conditioned by the presence of areas of loose sand. 
1Data on the Orthopteran Faunistices of Eastern Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey. Proc. 
Acad. Nat. Sei., Phila., 1914, pp. 441-534. 
