NO. 1124. REF1SION OF THE MELANOPLI-SCUDDER. 



me, but insufficiently. Podisma follows, with about twenty-four 

 species, of which only eight are found in America, then Aeoloplus with 

 ten, Hesperotettix with eight, and Bradynotes with seven. The remaining 

 genera have at the most only three or four species each, and fourteen 

 of them are monotypic. 



The genera with widest latitudinal range (over twenty degrees) are, 

 primarily, Melanoplus, and tben Hesperotettix (eight species), PJtoc- 

 t nluttes (one species), Oedaleonotus (one species), Campylacantha (four 

 species), and probably Podisma (eight species). Aeoloplus (ten species) 

 follows hard after. The genera characteristic of the United States, 

 with narrowest known limits, are Gymnoscirtetes and Eotettix, both 

 known only from Florida. These last two, with Paroxya and Apteno- 

 pedes, are the only genera (with eight species between them) confined 

 to the eastern United States, if Texas may be included in that term, 

 for they do not extend west of that. Most of the genera are western, 

 using that term in a broad sense, though Hypochlora, Campylacantha, 

 Dendrotettix, Paratylotropidia, and PhoetaUotes all but Campylacantha 

 monotypic genera are peculiar to the Mississippi Valley, though prin- 

 cipally to its western half. The only genera found across or almost 

 across the continent, or at all events on opposite sides of the continent, 

 are Melanoplus, Hesperotettix, and Podisma. Aeoloplus (ten species), 

 Bradynotes (seven species), Poecilotettix (three species), Oedaleonotus 

 (one species 1 ), and Asemoplus (one species) are characteristic of the 

 extreme West. Finally, Hypochlora (one species), Bradynotes (seven 

 species), Podisma (eight species), and Asemoplus (one species) are con- 

 fined or nearly confined to the region north of latitude 35. Podisma 

 has also the same limitations in the Old World. Regarding the distri- 

 bution of Melanoplus, with its great preponderance of forms, further 

 details will be given under that genus. 



There are but few species which range across the continent, yet not 

 a few have a very wide distribution. The examples of the former are 

 wholly confined to Melanoplus: M. atlanis, fasciatus, femur-rubnim, 

 extremus, minor, tmdfemoratus, M. extremus only in the high north. As 

 illustrations of the latter may be mentioned Hesperotetiix pratensis, 

 PhoetaUotes nebrascensis, Paroxya florldana, Oedaleonotus enigma, and 

 the following species of Melanoplus: flabellifer, spretus, scudderi, daw- 

 soni, cinereus, packardii, luridus, differentialis, bivittatus, and punctula- 

 tns. Most of these range more widely from north to south than from 

 east to west. About three fourths of all the species are known from 

 west of the Mississippi River only. 



J)imorphism in length of tegmina. We find in the Melanopli every 

 variation possible in the length of the tegmina, but the species are ill 

 general tolerably well fixed in this respect. The same is the case with 

 most of the genera, the species of which are in each case generally 

 apterous, provided with lateral pads, abbreviated tegmina, or fully 



