684 REPORT UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



Tvz Eastern Red-Legged Locust, Jenjdittm femur-rnlrum De Geer; Calojyteuus 

 femnr-ruhrnm White (Plate LXII, Fig. 51). — A medium-sized grasshopper, the male dif- 

 fering chiefly from the male 82)retu8 in the end of the abdomen not being notched, 

 but rounded and mucli blunter ; ranging from Labrador and Canada to the Pacific 

 Coast, including the border States and the Mississippi Valley, not extending south of 

 latitude 35°, occasionally in dry seasons becoming very destructive and gathering in 

 local swarms, but not commonly migrating far from its breeding-place. 



All that has been published in regard to the breeding-habits of the 

 eastern red-legged locust is the following passage in Harris's Treatise 

 on the Injurious Insects of Massachusetts : " It comes to maturity with 

 us by the latter part of July; some broods, however, a little earlier, 

 and others later. It is most plentiful and destructive during the months 

 of August and September, and does not disappear till some time in 

 October." Of the larva and its habits we have nothing on record, but 

 it is probable that it hatches late in May and early in June, and as the 

 latitude varies becomes winged in seven or eight weeks or sooner. I 

 have observed the locusts copulating and laying their eggs at Amherst, 

 Mass., during the middle and last of September, after the first frosts, 

 and they continue doing so into October. While they oviposit in the 

 soil of upland meadows and hay -fields, they are more commonly seen in 

 hard gravelly paths in company with GSdipoda, Sordida, and 'Carolina, 

 and other grasshoppers. Having put a few into a glass jar partly filled 

 with dirt I was able to observe the process. 



I placed several G. femurrubrum under glass in a vessel filled with 

 gravelly soil. The insect in boring into the ground brings the end of 

 its abdomen forward so as to be nearly x)erpendicular to the rest of the 

 body. The end of the abdomen, armed with its stout spines, is then 

 slowly thrust down, not being retracted during the operation unless the 

 insect is disturbed. The hole thus made is not over an inch deep and 

 about one-fifth of an inch in diameter. Plate LXIV, Fig. 4, represents 

 this species after the hole has been made. The size and form of the 

 egg-sac and eggs is shown on the right of the figure. It is 15 milli- 

 meters long and 5 millimeters in diameter, the eggs being shown 

 through the thin wall of the sac, which in those I have seen is thinner 

 and lighter than in C. spretus, the amount of the spongy substance se- 

 creted by the insect being perhaps less. I have ventured to represent 

 a massof this glutinous matter coming from the body of the female. It is 

 possible that the drawing (made by Mr. Emerton, from a sketch made by 

 myself from life) is incorrect in this particular. The spongy glutinous 

 substance (probably a modified silky secretion) may be deposited in 

 • part at first and the eggs arranged in it, passing out of the end of the 

 oviduct singly.* The cockroach ejects her eggs all at once and con- 

 tained in a sac. In the egg-sacs which I observed the eggs were not 

 arranged so regularly as in those of the Rocky Mountain locust. During 

 the process the abdomen is nearly half longer than usual and greatly 

 distended. The eggs are curved cylindrical, of the same form as in G. 

 spreius, but considerably smaller, being 4 millimeters in length. The 

 chorian is pitted in the same manner, and there is a similar constriction 

 at the posterior end. 



In (Edipoda sordida the egg-mass is 14 millimeters long and 5 milli- 

 meters in diameter. The eggs are of the usual size and 5 millimeters 

 in length. 



From Mr. S. J. Smith's description (Proceedings of the Portland 

 Society of Natural History) of the mode of oviposition in Ghoealtis con- 



* Mr. W. S. Dallas thinks that the glutinous mass is first produced by the insect, and 

 the eggs afterward laid in it. (Zoological Record for lb67.) Further observations are 

 necessary to determine this point; they can (p. 4C0) easily be made, however. 



