NO. 1124. REVISION OF THE MELAXOPLISCrDDER. 183 



or mountainous regions . . .5 it seems also to prefer a wooded or mixed 

 country to the open prairies or plains." 



This is one of the most variable of the Melanopli, and it is some- 

 times difficult to distinguish from its immediate allies. The above 

 description is drawn up primarily from Eastern examples which came 

 from the region from which the species was originally described. 

 Specimens from the dry plains of the West (especially noted in those 

 from Utah) are decidedly paler and more cinereous in aspect than those 

 from relatively fertile country, and they have often a flavous stripe 

 bordering the eye and continued along the position of the lateral 

 carinae: a similar but not so striking a cinereous hue attaches to those 

 tliat occur in sandy localities in the Eastern States, as along the sea 

 margin. The exact contrary is shown in Canada just east of the Eocky 

 Mountains, where the specimens are exceedingly dark in color, almost 

 blackish fuscous, with heavy fasciation of the hind femora; l but here 

 again a difference of another sort occurs as one passes eastward, speci- 

 mens from Laggan and Banff almost invariably having relatively long 

 and slender male cerci, while at Calgary all that have been seen (with 

 a very few from the former localities) have male cerci hardly more 

 than half as long again as broad. Specimens from Mexico, however, 

 agree very closely with those from New England. 



Specimens with green hind tibiae have been seen by me from the 

 White Mountains, New Hampshire, but not from the summits (except 

 Kearsarge 3,251 feet), from the vicinity of Boston, at Provincetown, 

 and on the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts, from Laggan, Alberta, 

 the Yellowstone region, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Missouri, Colo- 

 rado, from the Salt Lake valley and American Fork Canyon (9,500 feet), 

 Utah, Texas, and Chihuahua, Mexico. Specimens with dark blue 

 hind tibiae have been seen from Iowa, Colorado, American Fork Canyon, 

 Utah, and Texas. In nearly or quite all these cases specimens with 

 red hind tibiae predominated in the same district. 



According to Kiley the first mature insects observed one year about 

 St. Louis, Missouri, appeared July 12, and deposited eggs by July 20. 

 The eggs had a quadrilinear arrangement in the pod, hatched in from 

 three to four weeks, and the young took eighty days to reach maturity. 

 He says he has proved that the insect is there double-brooded, though 

 I find no data published by him in support of the statement, and the 

 above facts drawn from his writings militate against it. Bruuer, how- 

 ever, agrees with it, saying that in the District of Columbia a second 

 brood appears in the late autumn, composed of smaller and darker 

 individuals. I have seen nothing of the kind in New England. 



The points in which the unfledged locusts differ from the same stages 

 in M. spretus and M. femur-rubrum are explained and figured in the 

 first report of the United States Entomological Commission, in which 

 many other interesting points regarding this species will be found. 



1 Specimens from Sudbury, Ontario, are similarly (.lark. 



