48 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [February, 



have a special knowledge, even if more than usually intelligent or other- 

 wise well educated. I have not infrequently received insects with a sam- 

 ple of injury supposed to have been done by them, which I knew at once 

 they could not have caused. The true depredator may be inconspicuous, 

 or a nocturnal prowler, while a common, noisy day bird is charged with 

 the mischief. A very good illustration of this feature may be found in 

 the case of the Orthoptera frequenting cranberry bogs. For years past 

 the grasshoppers (Acrididae) have been charged with the injury, though 

 I have always attributed it to the katydids (Locustidae). The growers 

 have always contended that there were few or no katydids and any num- 

 ber of grasshoppers, and they must be the depredators. Now it is quite 

 true that grasshoppers are very much en evidence on many bogs, and 

 their clumsy jumpings and noisy flight attract so much attention that the 

 species of Scudderia with their noiseless flight, thin, almost transparent 

 wings and green color, are entirely overlooked. In several cases, after a 

 grower had positively declared that there were no katydids on his bog, I 

 caught several for him within a small radius, to his intense surprise. The 

 ne.xt obiection was, suppose there are a few katydids, how can they do all 

 this injury, they may eat berries, but so do the grasshoppers. On some 

 bogs it would have been possible to answer that if every grasshopper ate 

 only two berries a week, they would have taken every berry on the bog 

 in one week, but the true answer was found in the structure of the insects 

 themselves, and in the capacity of the digestive system. On page 50 will 

 be found figures of the digestive systems of a katydid, Scudderia fur cu- 

 lata, a grasshopper, Acridium obscurum, and a roach, Blatta orientalis; 

 the latter for a comparison merely. The differences are quite striking, 

 and give the katydid a capacity equaling three Acridiutn obscurum, or 

 eight Melanoplus fefnur-rubrum. In the Acridium, in Melanoplus, and 

 in all other of the grasshoppers examined by me, the crop is quite a 

 thick-walled structure, with grinding ridges, teeth and wrinklings on the 

 inner surface. There is no distinct gizzard. It may be well to say that 

 there is an extremely short oesophagus, and that the crop lies largely in 

 the thoracic cavity. The caeca consist of six purse-like upward extensions 

 with a short tail-like downward appendix to each. The stomach, or chy- 

 lific ventricle is shorter and of a smaller diameter than the crop, and holds 

 about half as much. The ileum and colon together do not equal the 

 stomach in capacity. We have here a very simple type ; an almost 

 straight tube from one end of the body to the other, divided into special- 

 ized regions. The katydid structure is quite dissimilar. VVe have, first, 

 a very long oesophagus extending through the thoracic cavity into the ab- 

 domen, where it enlarges to a crop which is a thin membranous sac, 

 capable of great distension. This merges into a distinct gizzard, which 

 has a complicated grinding apparatus and thence the food passes to a very 

 long stomach, at the mouth of which the caeca are represented by two 

 large pouches, also distended with food. The stomach forms two large 

 coils, and, with the csecal pouches, holds at least twice as much as the 



