190 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. VOL.XX. 



the season of oviposition. The return flights in the " temporary region" 

 begin from the 5th to the 10th of May in latitude 35, and about four 

 days later with each degree farther north. Mr. Riley, from whose 

 accounts these statements are drawn, gives a long list of plants and 

 trees attacked by this locust and its preferences among them. 1 



7. DEVASTATOR SERIES. 



This group is composed of very closely related species, often difficult 

 to distinguish, in which the male prozona is quadrate or subquadrate, 

 and the immature markings on the lateral lobes of the pronotuin, char- 

 acteristic of the young of Melanoplus, occasionally persist in the adult 

 -and especially in the female; the interspace between the mesosternal 

 lobes of the male is always longer than broad, varying from a little more 

 than half as long again to a little more than twice as long as broad. 

 The tegmina are always fully developed and generally maculate; the 

 hind tibiae are variable in color, often within the species, and have 

 from nine to thirteen spines in the outer series. 



The supraanal plate is similar to that of the femur-rubrum series, 

 but less constricted in the middle and shorter; the furcula consists of 

 a pair of parallel or subparalleJ, tapering, tolerably long, generally 

 fattened, acuminate fingers; the cerci are very simple, rather small, 

 not reaching the tip of the supraanal plate, slender and subequal, 

 tapering feebly in the basal half, equal beyond, bluntly rounded at tip, 

 and a little incurved, generally slightly sulcate or dimpled apically on 

 the outer side; the subgenital plate is broad, of subequal breadth, but 

 slightly broader at base than at tip, apically elevated and the apical 

 margin well rounded, thickened, and weakly notched. 



The insects are of small or medium size, and the species, eight in 

 number, are separable with difficulty. They are confined almost 

 exclusively to California, a single one of them only occurring also a 

 little beyond its boundaries in the neighboring regions. It is the char- 

 acteristic group of the Pacific coast. 



28. MELANOPLUS DIMINUTUS, new species. 

 (Plate XII, fig. 9.) 



Dark brownish fuscous with a ferruginous tinge. Head somewhat 

 pi eminent, brownish testaceous, more or less, generally profusely, dot- 

 ted with fuscous, and a fuscous baud behind the eyes: vertex rather 

 tumid, somewhat elevated above the pronotuin; interspace between 

 the eyes not very broad, equal to (male) or slightly broader than (female) 

 the first autennal joint; fastigium steeply decliveut. deeply sulcate 

 throughout; frontal costa fading out halfway between the ocellus and 

 lypeus, distinctly contracted above, equal elsewhere and broader than 

 (male) or as broad as (female) the interspace between the eyes, scarcely 

 sulcate but with prominent margins, seriately punctate at the sides; 



First report of the Entomological Commission, pages 1251-252 . 



