66 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO STAPLE CROPS. 



most Tiiliie. The female beetle deposits from four to five 

 hundred of her yellowish eggs in irregular masses in loose 

 ground, and in about ten days there hatch from these eggs 

 some " ver}^ active, long-legged larvae, with huge heads and 

 strong jaws, which run about everywhere seeking the eggs 

 of locusts/^ Each of these larvae will consume one of the 

 masses or about thirty eggs. The subsequent life-history 

 of these insects is very complicated on account of their 

 peculiar habits, but the various stages are shown in Fig. 



40. 



The Lesser Migratory Locust. 



Besides the Rock}'' Mountain Locust there is only one 

 other species that truly possesses the habit of migrating, 

 though to a far lesser extent, and which is therefore 

 known as the Lesser Migratory Locust (Mekuioplus atlanils 

 Eiley). It is considerably smaller than its western relative 

 and somewhat resembles the Red-legged Locust both in 

 size and appearance. The species of very vridely dis- 

 tributed, occurring from Florida to the Arctic Circle east 

 of the Mississippi, and on the Pacific sloj^e north of the 

 40th parallel to the Yukon. The habits and life-history 

 of the species are in all essentials practically the same as 

 of the former species except that they have no particular 

 breeding-grounds. Injuries by this grasshopper were first 

 noticed in 1743, almost seventy-five years before the first 

 record of the Rocky Mountain Locust, and since then they 

 have done more or less serious damage in some part of the 

 territory inhabited every few years. 



Non-migratory Locusts. 



There are several species of locusts which, though lack- 

 ing the migratory habit, and thus being more easily con- 

 trolled, often become so numerous as to do serious damage 



