94 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. VOL. xx. 



Our knowledge of the natural history of this species depends almost 

 entirely upon what Bruner wrote in his first account of it in 1887, 

 before it was named. He found it in destructive numbers in Washing- 

 ton County, Texas, feeding upon the post oak and a completely defoli- 

 ating the trees of the forest even to the very topmost twigs. 77 He gives 

 the following account of its history and habits: 



The egg pods are deposited in the ground about the bases of trees or indifferently 

 scattered abont the surface among the decaying leaves, etc., like those of all other 

 ground-laying species. The young commence hatching about the middle of March, 

 and continue to appear until into April. After molting the first time and becoming 

 a little hardened they immediately climb np the trunks of the trees and bushes of 

 all kinds and commence feeding upon the new and tender foliage. They molt at 

 least five or six times, if we may take the variation in size and difference in the 

 development of the rudiments of wings as a criterion. The imago or mature stage 

 is reached by the last of May or during the first part of June. 



The species is very active and shy in all its stages of growth after leaving the egg. 

 The larva and pupa run up the trunks and along the limbs of trees with considerable 

 speed, and in this respect differ considerably from all other species of locusts with 

 which I am acquainted. I am informed that the mature insects are also equally 

 wild and fly like birds. They feed both by day and night; and I am told by those 

 who have passed through the woods after night, when all else was quiet, that the 

 noise produced by the grinding of their jaws was not unlike the greedy feeding of 

 swine. 



The colors of the insect in life during the early stages are given in 

 the same place by Bruner and copied by Packard. 

 Kiley had previously reared the species in Missouri on oaks. 



21. PODISMA. 

 (Ilodidjuo?, measuring by feet.) 



Podisma LATREILLE, Cuvier, Regne Anirn., V (1829), p. 188. 

 Fezotettix BURMEISTER, Germar, Zeitschr. Ent., II (1840), p. 51. 



Form of body and of head as in Melanoplus; antennae as there, but 

 rarely (Podisma variegata, e. g.) they are as long as the hind femora. 

 Prouotum variable, but always short, sometimes subcylindrical, some- 

 times (and especially in the female) expanding considerably from in front 

 backward, never mesially contracted, generally with very feeble trans- 

 verse sulci, the lateral lobes obliquely truncate apically on the anterior 

 section; front margin truncate, hind margin usually subtruucate or 

 truncate and even emarginate, but sometimes also very obtusaugulate, 

 the prozona generally considerably longer than the metazona, sometimes 

 twice as long, smooth or very faintly punctate, the metazona generally 

 very densely punctate; median cariua distinct, but sometimes slight on 

 the metazona, generally feeble sometimes obsolete on the prozoua; lat- 

 eral carinae very variable, the disk sometimes passing quite insensibly 

 into the lateral lobes, sometimes so abruptly and angularly as to form 

 tolerably distinct lateral carinae. Prosternal spine always prominent, 

 generally bluntly conical; meso- and metastethia together, at least in 

 the male and nearly always in both sexes, distinctly longer than the 

 width of the metastethium, the latter narrowing posteriorly, so that the 



