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ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1923 



ruculatus, on account of the loud snapping notes it emits. Several 

 other members of the same genus are also cracklers, the noisiest be- 

 ing a western species called 0. carlingianus. Scudder says he has 

 had his attention drawn to this grasshopper "by its obstreperous 

 crackle more than a quarter of a mile away. In the arid parts of 

 the West it has a great fondness for rocky hillsides and the hot 

 vicinity of abrupt cliffs in the full exposure to the sun, where its 

 clattering rattle reechoes from the walls." 



One of the commonest of our larger grasshoppers is the Carolina 

 locust, Dissosteira Carolina. Its exposed colors are mottled to match 



fio. 2. — A grasshopper that makes a sound by scraping a sharp ridge on the inner surface 

 of the hind thigh against a toothed vein on the wing. (Mecostcthus pracilis.) A, the 

 male grasshopper (twice natural size). B, left front wing; the toothed vein is the 

 Intercalary vein (/) and its branches, between the cubitus (C«) and the media (If). 

 C, part of Intercalary vein and branches, more enlarged, showing rows of teeth 



the tones of the ground, but when it flies it unfolds a striking dis- 

 play of black bordered with yellow on its fanlike hind wings 

 (fig. 3). This locust is a strong flier and when flushed sails away 

 in the air on an undulating course over the tops of weeds, over bushes, 

 and sometimes over the tops of small trees, but always swerving this 

 way and that as if undecided where to alight. At times it has a 

 habit of hovering several feet up in the air over a certain spot on the 

 ground and of making a subdued crackling with the wings. 



Various observers have noted these hoveling flights of the Carolina 

 locust, performed always by the males as if they were holding some 

 sort of a contest in aeronautics. Townsend, seeing a male alight on 

 the ground after hovering for some time, noted in a few minutes 



