14<) 



you roport. Boiujaili tlic i-()U<;h('ii(Ml spots a careful examination will 

 disclose the (\n-,i;s of the meadow <i,russhoi)|)(>r {Orrlirliniiif/i vuh/arc), which 

 is evidently veiy conuuon this year. . 



"There is of course not the slif^htest reason to suppose that they 

 have any injurious effect upon stock. What it is that kills animals so 

 fre(iu(>ntly shortly after they have been turned into corn fields in the 

 fall I am unable to say, and I am told that experts differ on that matter. 

 Their death is not infrequently attributed to any extraordinary cir- 

 cumstance which the farmer may notice in the field at the time. Some 

 years it is believed to l)e the cast skins of chinch-bugs; this year it is 

 the eggs of meadow grasshoppers." 



We have foimd egg masses of these grasshoppers in stems of dog- 

 bane, lamb's-cjuarters, Spanish needles, horse-nettle, elder, crab-grass, 

 raspberry, blackberry, timothy, BoUonin, Baptisia, and Cuina arundi- 

 nacea. They have also been found in large numbers in cotton stalks 

 in Louisiana. The other species, so far as known, oviposit in a similar 

 maimer. It is staliMJ of (jlaberrimum that only a single egg is laid in each 

 opening, but this needs verifying. 



The eggs are elongate, slightly (•urv(>d, about (5 nun. long by about 

 .75 mm. thick, differing from those of the smaller meadow grasshoppers 

 (Xiphidium) in being somewhat depressed. They are smooth, opaque, 

 pale drab or bluisli. They are usually laid in the first half of September 

 and may be found thereafter during the winter, hatching somewhat 

 late the following season, the young then scattering in search of food. 

 The young are most abundant in July and August. 



The adults begin to appear about the middle of July, becoming most 

 abundant in September, wIumi they lay their eggs, and by October they 

 have mostly disappearcMl. 



Silvaticum is known from Illinois only. The other species range 

 from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic, viih/dre being very common 

 and glaberrimum comparatively rare. 



Orchelimum vulgare is treated as a sugar-beet insect in the Twenty- 

 first Report of this office (p. 135). By an error in marking drawings 

 the figure (Fig. 58) of the egg cluster of (Ecanthus latipennis was there 

 used for this species. 



i 



