NO. 1124. EE VIS ION OF THE MELANOPLI SC UDDER. 95 



portion behind the metasternal lobes is not (or is hardly) more than 

 half the greatest width of the metastethiuin and is twice as broad as 

 long; interspace between inesosternal lobes of male distinctly trans- 

 verse, 1 as broad or almost as broad as the lobes themselves; of the 

 female distinctly or strongly transverse, often fully twice as broad as 

 long, generally as broad as and sometimes broader than the lobes them- 

 selves; metasternal lobes of male generally distinctly distant, occa- 

 sionally approximate, never attingent; of the female generally more dis- 

 tant, the interspace in the latter sex generally as broad as or broader 

 than the frontal costa. Tegmina never fully developed, often wholly 

 wanting, and when present either lateral, and then generally shorter 

 than the short pronotum, or else attingent or overlapping, and then at 

 most reaching the middle of the hind femora, and usually subacuminate. 

 Hind femora moderately long and slender, the inferior geuicular lobe 

 as in Melanoplus and the spines of the hind tibiae generally rather fewer 

 than in that genus, nine to eleven, by exception eight or twelve, in 

 number in the outer series. Abdomen more or less compressed, the 

 sides of the first segment with or (in some apterous Old World forms) 

 without a distinct tympanum, the extremity in the male more or less 

 clavate and recurved; subgenital plate of very variable form, often 

 prolonged to a distinct apical conical tubercle involving the apical 

 margin, the lateral margins basally ampliate; cerci very variable, but 

 to a less degree than in Melauoplus, not infrequently styliform, of vari- 

 able length; furcula usually developed, but only at most to a small 

 degree; ovipositor of female variable, typically exserted, but sometimes 

 exceptionally extended and at others partially withdrawn in the then 

 obtusely terminating abdomen. 



The limits between this genus and Melanoplus are difficult to formu- 

 late; while there is no difficulty in separating the bulk of the species 

 in either group, there are a number which find their place almost 

 equally well in either. I have here attempted to state anew the char- 

 acters first expressed by Stal, though with such necessary modifica- 

 tions and expansions as a far larger series of forms entails. I can 

 hardly hope that the conclusions I have reached will be sustained at 

 every point, but I am confident that they must hold in the main. In 

 doubtful cases I have endeavored to determine the affinities from the 

 concurrent study of both sexes and not from either alone, which would 

 have brought about other and sometimes discordant results; and I 

 have assigned the greatest weight to the intervals between the sternal 

 lobes. 



As I have here employed a different generic term from that in cur- 

 rent use in literature, I submit the following cogent reasons for the 

 necessity of the change: 



The generic name Podisma was proposed in a Gallic form (Podisme) 



1 A single exception is known to ine in the subapterous Japanese Podisma dairixama, 

 where it is slightly longitudinal. 



