THE AMERICAN LOCUST. 51 



ter months, causes a disappearance of most forms of 

 insect life. With the coming of March they begin 

 gradually to reappear, but there is no spring flight 

 of beetles, and those which pass the dry season in the 

 perfect or imago stage seem to be much fewer in 

 number than in the north, where I have taken three 

 hundred and more species thus hibernating.* It is 

 said that not until the beginning of the wet season, 

 in the latter part of May, do the majority of the sum- 

 mer fauna of Coleoptera and other orders of insects 

 begin to make their appearance in Florida. 



Large numbers of the American locust, Schisto- 

 cerca americana Drury, have now reached maturity. 

 When flushed they are most difficult to capture, mov- 



Fig. 13 American Grasshopper. 



Schistocerca americana Dru. 

 (Male.) 



ing in rapid, rollicking flight to tree or tall shrub 

 and alighting usually far above the reach of my net. 

 It was probably from such a source as this that the 

 large numbers of mature specimens blown into In- 



*Se Psyche, 18%, p. 336, et aeq. t for an annotated list of 286 of these. 



