143 



it lays its eggs in the ground in a podlike mass, to hatch the following 

 summer. The species ranges from the Atlantic to the Great Plains 

 and from New England to Texas. 



THE KATYDIDS. 



Scudderia texensis Sauss.-Pict. 



Scudderia pistillcda Brunn. 



Scudderia furcata Brunn. 



These insects may be classed as katydids, as distinguished from the 

 meadow grasshoppers, although their song is but a single note, quite 

 different from that of the familiar katydid of our most abundant species. 

 They are nearly uniform green-, with long, threadlike antenna?, and long, 

 slender legs, and with larger wings than those of the meadow grass- 

 hoppers. The commonest species in corn fields, *S'. furcata (Fig. 131), 

 is about an inch and a half long; 

 the other species about two inches, 

 measuring to the tips of the closed 

 wings. As compared with the 

 meadow grasshoppers, there are rel- 

 atively few of these katydids in corn 

 fields. Furcata has been found by 



1 ,• r J- 1 Fig. 131. A Katydid, Scudderia furcata, 



us several times ieeding on corn and male. Natural size. (Lugger.) 

 laying its eggs in the leaves, and 



pistillcda is said by Bruner to be quite common in Nebraska corn fields. 

 We have noticed two cases of small injury to corn by texensis. In 

 one, the kernels at the tip of the ear had been eaten beneath the 

 husks, a space being thus excavated as large as the insect's body. 

 The eggs are inserted in the margins of the leaves of various plants. 

 The corn leaf is used for this purpose by furcata, and probably also 

 by other species. The leaf edge is first gnawed away, the strongly 

 curved, knifelike, short, flat ovipositor is carefully forced into the cut 

 edge of the leaf between the upper and the lower epidermis for a 

 distance of nearly a fourth of an inch, and the large flattened egg is 

 then deposited in the pocket thus formed. Several eggs are some- 

 times laid in succession along the margin of a leaf. The young are 

 said to be found in July, feeding on corn like the adults, and mostly 

 reaching maturity about the middle of that month. The winged insects 

 are found thereafter until fall. The eggs are laid in September, remain 

 in the leaves over winter, and hatch the following summer. Adults 

 of furcata frequent the borders of thickets and fence rows and weedy 

 fields. Texensis chooses similar haunts, but resorts perhaps more fre- 

 quently to the open fields. It is very troublesome in cranberry bogs, 

 mutilating the berries for the sake of the seeds, and ovipositing chiefly 



